QUESTION: My grandmother loved to collect pieces of china. Among her pieces, which have now been passed on to me, are several brightly colored and decorated ones with a slight copper-like tone to the decorative glaze. Can you tell me what they are and a bit about their history?
ANSWER: What you have are pieces of Gaudy Welsh pottery. And while some of it had been made in Wales, the majority originated in the potteries of Staffordshire, England.
American collectors and antique dealers coined the name Gaudy Welsh after World War II. British collectors called the ware Welsh Lusterware, Peasant Enamel, Swansea Cottage, or simply cottage ware, to distinguish it from early 19th-century wares designed to sell to English small town and rural cottage residents.
Gaudy Welsh was inexpensive—pieces sold for pennies—making it appealing to lower and middle-income families. Collectors often refer to it as cheerful, cheap, and colorful. Pottery factories used a variety of ceramic bodies, including bone china, creamware, and ironstone.
Forms include bowls, cake plates, chamber pots, creamers an sugars, cups and saucers, fruit bowls, jugs, mugs, pitches, plates, punch bowls, soup bowls, teapots, toddies, vases, and slop bowls, intended as receptacles for used tea leaves.
Although most manufacturers stopped producing Gaudy Welsh by the 1860s, some continued production into the early 20th century.
Over 150 factories produced Gaudy Welsh pottery, from Scotland's Anderson Glasgow Pottery, to Yorkshires Turpin and Company. However only a small percentage of Gaudy Welsh ware came from factories in Wales. The motif appears to have originated with Llanelly and Swansea. Newcastle and Sunderland firms also made it. The majority of the ware produced by ceramic manufacturers such as Allertons and Copeland in Staffordshire potteries.
Potteries employed different combinations of ingredients to produce Gaudy Welsh. Finished pieces ranged from the least expensive earthenware to cream-ware to ironstone and finally to the most expensive
Potteries fired Gaudy Welsh ware three times, each at a different temperature. The first firing fused the bodies, and following workers removed any roughness was removed what was then known as biscuit ware.
Biscuit ware provided the surface for decoration. Artisans applied a cobalt blue underglaze, then dipped the pieces in glaze before the second firing or fixing. This glaze provided a glossy surface which decorators then painted with copper luster and enamel colors. The third firing set the luster and colors.
Depending on the sourcing of clay and different recipes used, Gaudy 'bodies' had different thickness and weight, causing it to vary from opaque to translucent.
Hand painting Gaudy Welsh pottery posed special technical challenges. Cobalt blue was a dirty brown when applied before the second firing which brought out its blue/purple color. Enamels and luster were almost translucent when applied before the final firing. Women and children did most of the decorating either in small factories or in their homes.
Welsh potteries made many Gaudy Welsh jugs in the 1820s and 1830s, causing ceramic historians to believe that they were made in Wales for the local market. These jugs generally included the earliest patterns. The most common tea service pattern was Tulip which had eight variations. This pattern is the best known in Wales. But Staffordshire potteries produced most of the tea services.
Gaudy Welsh ware had a very specific palette of colors. Its palette included cobalt blue underglaze, with a pink luster that appeared copper when applied overglaze onto the cobalt blue, and russet.
Potters used yellow sparingly or not at all on Gaudy Welsh patterns, shading from a light to lemon yellow hue. Gaudy Welsh greens ranged from pale yellow green to a dark green. Russet or burnt orange ranged from a vibrant hue to a very subtle shading. Incorporated with blue, where the white color of the object was allowed to show in some patterns, revealing a very attractive contrast. Artisans used cobalt blue underglaze over wide surface areas of Gaudy Welsh borders as leaves, panels, vines and stems, for motifs, and as scrolling. Decorators employed pink sparingly.
Gaudy Welsh ware became known for its large number of patterns and variation of design within patterns. Antique experts estimate that there were 460 different patterns produced. However, some patterns, such as Grape, Hexagon, Tulip, and Vine, had more than one design, and Tulip, one of the most common patterns, had eight variations of design. Different executions of the one pattern weren’t identical as they were individually outlined and hand painted. Ironically, makers of Gaudy Welsh pottery didn’t name patterns at the time of manufacture.
Over time, collectors created pattern names after what the design represented, such as particular flowers. Other patterns had been named after villages and towns in Wales. Pattern names run the gamut---Angels Trumpet, Buckle, Columbine, Feather, Garland, Grape, Oyster, Sunflower, Tulip, and Sea Wave. Most patterns are unnamed. Motifs also could include birds, cartouches, fences, flower petals, panels, and trees. .
Gaudy Welsh designs were vivid and predominantly resemble Asian depictions of flowers such as anemones, poppies, tulips, roses, peonies and cherry blossoms. Some designs were abstract with vertical stripes or lattices. Similarities occurred in a many designs, including panels, cartouches, fences, grape leaves and flower petals.
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