If you are looking for a genuine Christopher Dresser
tile you will search long and hard which likely seems a
strange comment because virtually wherever one looks
these days they are offered for sale. Of course when one
sees a 'Dresser' tile for sale one has to reach a
judgment as to whether the tile on offer was really
designed by Dresser or is it salesmanship but it may well
be neither for the seller may well have consulted sources
that appear credible. Books abound in which the authors
attribute to Dresser but few go as far as to say
by Dresser for there are no tile patterns known to
have been designed by Christopher Dresser. Not a single
tile design signed by him has been found nor other
contemporary record such as receipt for payment for his
work, out of the myriad attributions to Dresser there is
just one from an apparently credible source but even that
is flawed. The confusion no doubt arises because the
majority of books about ceramic design and designers who
designed for ceramics have been written by pottery and
porcelain experts who extrapolate to tiles without fully
understanding the differences.
There are many reasons why Dresser would have little
interest in designing tiles, points widely misunderstood
by writers are the relative roles of artists and
architects, what is known as artistic sensibilities and
the tension between tiles as building materials and tiles
as decorative art objects. A sure indicator of Dresser's
lack of interest in tiles is that in his own books
designs for many media and materials are shown but none
for tiles. Dresser had a known association with Mintons
from the 1860s to the 1880s and this has been
extrapolated to assume that he also designed tiles for
them.
The following two quotations are from an essay by
Wendy Walgate, Dresser: Influences & Impact of a
Victorian Visionary. In the manner of a serious work she
cites all her references apart from one which is
dutifully noted, the remark perhaps most relevant to this
essay!
Dresser himself asserted that ornament and not
architecture was his "sphere", however he believed that
the two disciplines were indivisible.[footnote needed
here] He stated, "The material at hand, the religion
of the people, the climate have . . . determined the
character of the architecture of all ages and nations . .
. and the nature of the ornamentation of the
edifices."[37] This statement is to some degree
similar to Semper's list of influences that determine
basic form: both materials and tools along with "place,
climate, time, customs, particular characteristics, rank,
position".[38]
From the Gothic or as Pugin would call it, Catholic
style, Dresser took the idea of "simple honesty and
boldness", a concept which he would use in his
manufacturing designs.[47] Dresser eventually
discontinued his use of Gothic decoration since, "having
passed from its purity towards undue elaboration, it
began to lose its hold on the people for whom it was
created, and the form of religion with which it had long
been associated had become old, when the great overthrow
of old traditions and usages occurred, commonly called
the Reformation."[48]
37, 47; 48 Dresser, C., 1881 Principles of Art ,
adopted by the Art Furnishers' Alliance with prefatory
notes by E. Lee. London. no publisher.
38 Semper, G., 1989. The Four Elements of Architecture
and Other Writings. Cambridge: Cambridge U.P.
In the preface to the 1881 Mintons and 1883
[1] Mintons Ltd. tile catalogues A. W. N. Pugin,
John Moyr Smith, H. S. Marks and E. E. Houghton receive
credit for their designs but not Dresser, I am sure that
he had by this time a sufficiently illustrious reputation
to warrant inclusion had he designed tiles for Mintons or
Minton & Co.. Pugin designed tiles for Minton &
Co. and passed away long before the formation of Mintons,
he is greatly praised in the introduction, somewhat
ironically many of the tiles erroneously attributed to
Dresser were in fact designed by Pugin. Most of the 19thC
tile designers especially those from the middle of the
century were architects, Pugin of course, E W Godwin,
John Bradburn and many more, John Moyr Smith trained as
an architect, Halsey Ricardo noted for his work with Wm.
de Morgan & Co. was an architect, he also designed
tiled fireplaces for Wedgwood in the
1880s.[MB]
The catalogue's introduction is of course marketing
and should be construed as such but there is no reason to
doubt its veracity, three points are emphasised, the
history of the company, the designs of A. W. N. Pugin and
Reynolds' patented printing process. We read, "The
process for the decoration of Tiles was early favoured by
the late Mr. A. Welby Pugin, "the great restorer of the
Gothic Art," in the Houses of Parliament and in many
other places, and the patterns in that style of ornament
in this book are all from his hand" and so it is
taken that all gothic designs shown are by Pugin. It can
also be seen that at least two designs by A. W. N. Pugin,
and so one presumes others, were introduced many years
after his death being copied from his book Floriated
Ornament.
These three marketing points were all appropriated by
Campbell the owner of Mintons from the preceding Minton,
Hollins & Co. tile business which passed in to the
ownership of its manager of near three decades Michael
Hollins. Pugin designed for Minton & Co. long before
Campbell joined the company, Reynolds was persuaded to
leave Hollins to join Campbell, even the history of tile
making owed most to Hollins who had managed the tile
business for the preceding twenty-eight years since 1840
including the development and manufacture of designs by
Pugin. During this time Hollins oversaw the manufacture
of both Pugin designs and Reynolds' printing and was the
dominant figure in the development of the business.
Hollins can take virtually all the credit for the
development of industrial wall tile manufacture and
turned the loss making tile business in to profit, it was
he who first made tiles using Prosser's patent process.
Whilst the introduction appears in the catalogue dating
from 1883 and another from 1881 it may have been used in
earlier catalogues and the date of its writing is
unknown.
The foreword to the reproduced catalogue written by
Joan Jones unfortunately contains several errors typical
of a pottery expert discussing tiles. The Minton
companies are confused, "Minton China Works tile
catalogue." should be Mintons China Works at least
but most correctly Mintons Ltd. (China Works was the
address not the company name nor the trading name).
"Mintons diversity of output never ceases to amaze,
from decorative wall tiles to encaustic floor tiles, from
the classical to the naturalistic, Gothic to Japanese
style, the tiles are depicted individually and as they
would be seen in situ in borders, arrangements, floor
layouts and fireplace panels and hearths." Mintons
never made any encaustic floor tiles and there are no
floor layouts shown in the catalogue, Minton & Co.
and Minton, Hollins & Co. made encaustic tiles.
There may be as many as two hundred designs by Pugin
illustrated in the catalogue as stated in the original
preface penned by the company in 1881 or earlier and
quoted above, whilst impossible to mention them all why
1327 and 1328 receive special mention is a mystery. There
are those more dramatic, bigger and more brightly
coloured and interesting such as pattern 1303 which Pugin
selected for the cover of Floriated Ornament. There is
pattern 1063 taken from floriated ornament printed in
1849 yet registered by Mintons in 1869. It would have
been good to know which designs are thought to be by
Christopher Dresser, the writer says, "[designs
by] the radical art botanist Christopher Dresser
come to life amongst its pages". Certainly there are
some dado designs taken from Dresser's Studies in Design
and the crane tiles adapted from a Dresser flowerpot
design, but these are designs adapted by Mintons rather
than tiles designed by Dresser.
Dresser as with all noted designers whose work was
widely distributed and illustrated and published in the
media was much imitated, there is no doubt that Mintons
amongst many others plagarised and copied Dresser designs
for other materials and applied them to tiles. As
discussed here Mintons was
as comfortable with borrowing designs as many other
companies. Mintons is recorded as having commissioned
designs from Dresser for tablewares, from The Dictionary
of Minton: "His association with Minton began in the
late 1860s when he supplied them with numerous designs
for tablewares and ornamental pieces, including some very
revolutionary shaped vases with richly coloured
decoration." As ever there is no reference to
tiles.
A design by Dresser is illustrated in Lockett and
described as, "pen and wash design in blue on a white
ground of three cranes flying over stylised waves.
71/2ins . by 11ins. Signed 'Chr Dresser'. A Minton tile
was based on this design". Note Lockett's guarded
comment, he does not attribute the tile to Dresser but
notes the similarity. When examples come to market they
are almost universally stated as designed by Dresser yet
it is fairly clear that the designer, most likely
inhouse, adapted Dresser's original. The 11" x 7.5"
design has three cranes, a cloud and the sun nicely
distributed in plenty of free space. The tile keeps those
elements, adds an extra cloud and cuts off virtually all
the free space above the sun in the original. The design
is now, in comparison to the original, cramped,
incoherent and totally lacking the hallmark of simplicity
evident in the original. I believe that Lockett used
exactly the correct phrase, "was based on", "after Chr
Dresser" and especially "in the manner of Chr Dresser"
miss the point completely. This same design is described
by Jones on page 180 as "for a tile" when it clearly is
not, she also only gives one dimension, 20.5 cms,
obscuring the fact that is rectangular and not of typical
tile proportions.
After having commented that at 11ins by 7 1/2ins it a
design for a vase, platter, plaque etc. and certainly not
for a tile and that the design and its dimensions are
well suited to a cylindrical vase it was found that The
Metropolitan Museum of Art has a tile and links it to a
piece of pottery. It observes, "The composition of the
tile relates directly to a Japanese blue and white
ceramic flowerpot, circa 1860, that was exhibited at the
1862 International Exhibition in London and later
acquired by the South Kensington Museum (now Victoria and
Albert Museum)."
Widely but
erroneously believed to have been designed by
Dresser this tile design is in fact adapted by
Mintons from a Dresser design for a flowerpot it
in turn being adapted from a japanese jardiniere
first seen in England in 1862. The original
design for a flowerpot, but not the flowerpot
itself, is shown in Minton, The First Two
Hundred Years of Design and Production by Joan
Jones the former curator of the Minton museum
wherein it is described as a design for tile
despite it not being of dimensions of standard
tiles and both the jardiniere and the flowerpot
predating the tile.
There is a tile design in the National Archives
described thus, "This design is by Dr. Christopher
Dresser. The design registration does not mention Dresser
however this is not unusual. This design, forming part of
a design for a border, is illustrated in Joan Jones
Minton, Two Hundred Years of Design &
Production". This somewhat ambiguous sentence
suggests that the tile design is an abstract from a
larger design which in itself makes it most unlikely that
Dresser designed it. It appears to describe precisely
what designers (esp. inhouse) do, take designs from a
variety of sources and adapt them to suit their needs.
This practice was especially prevalent in the potteries,
you have to ask why Mintons would abandon their usual
practice and pay for a design that they could easily
copy. The tile is in the aforementioned Mintons catalogue
pattern number 1143.
The British Museum also has the tile in its collection
and apparently being appraised of this essay has amended
the curator's comments: This design appears as no.
1143 G, sheet 8 in a Minton catalogue of c 1885
(reprinted by Richard Dennis Publications, Shepton
Beauchamp, 1996). It appears elsewhere in several
colourways. See Jones 1993 p. 169 for the design in a
different colourway. See also Halen 1991. According to
Joan Jones an estimate book mentions 'Dresser's Tomtits'.
She has also come across the design as 'little birds' and
'grey birds', though at present this is
unlocated.
It would appear that The British Museum in the
exercise of due diligence has reached out to Joan Jones
for verification, unfortunately Jones' comment does not
confirm the Dresser attribution. To the contrary we see
the attribution is at best tenuous lacking any link to a
tile merely to an apparently unrelated estimate book
entry. Tomtits are quite different to Blue Tits, the
birds on the tile are not Tomtits, and I am sure given
the nature of Dresser's attention to detail that Tomtits
were selected as the subject matter, wherever they are to
be found, for good reason.
Since this essay first appeared
online two references to "tomtits" being a generic form
of description of unknown small birds in England have
appeared online, to me they seem to be artificial
constructs (euphemism!). It is remarkable to suggest that
blue tits would not be recognised as blue tits because
they are quite clearly blue, and in the days before mass
media everyone knew more about such things. It is a
matter of fact that tomtits are clearly defined and that
the tomtits design appears on a china bowl by Mintons
and is recorded as by Dresser for it appears in the
standard literature written by a china and pottery
expert. Tomtits are not blue rather than are brown
similar to sparrows, whilst some subspecies have yellow
chests the most unique feature of the bird is its red
beak albeit rarely as red in real life than as portrayed
by artists. Of course those who do not know their subject
and fail to do due diligence are going to get it wrong
and they should be penalised for their failings as the
marketplace does. This eBay item (www.ebay.co.uk/itm/174831016017)
is instructive for judging by the eBay seller's words
they have perused the Tile Heaven website and ascertained
the falsity of their position but nevertheless have gone
ahead and created fiction portrayed as fact describing
blue tits as tomtits in the title. That is of course in
my opinion for I am not a mind reader and can not say
what is or was in their mind however the published words
appear to justify such a conclusion.
Another tile design in the National Archives
Registration no. 237644, Cat Ref no. BT 43/68 and dated
31 December 1869 is described thus: "This design is
similar to those of Dr. Christopher Dresser but no firm
attribution to this designer has been established. It is
however rare for a designer to be mentioned in the design
registers held at The National Archives. Much work has
still to be done to distinguish between Dresser's
personal work and that of anonymous designers trained by
Dresser or inspired by his work." The design is in
the Mintons catalogue number 1068, it also appears in
Pugin's Floriated Ornament (no. 7 on page 30) albeit
without the narrow top and bottom bands which are common
on Pugin's designs. Floriated Ornament was published in
1849, it is surprising that the registration was accepted
by the Patent Office two decades later as the addition of
generic borders hardly seems sufficient to call it
unique.
Both Pugin and Dresser and indeed almost any other
publisher of designs show simple design forms in their
books. The simpler a design is the less likely that it is
to be unique. Many Pugin and Dresser designs and
especially design elements such as single flowerheads are
in isolation impossible to attribute, they could be by
either or any of the innumerable artists in the history
of mankind.
I would turn the National Archives comment on its
head, let us find a single tile design confirmed to be by
Dresser before speculating about any others. After years
of trying the noted Dresser expert Harry Lyons was unable
to find any designs for his book that he could confirm
designed by Dresser. Whilst he states, "much of Dresser's
work for the Mintons name was in tiles" he fails to
illustrate a single example instead in his descriptions
of illustrated tiles in all cases bar one he uses the
phrase "in the style of Dresser". In the other
single instance, the first tile design in the National
Archives mentioned above, the author uses the phrase
"typical Dresser motifs".
The author's confusion about the chronology of the
Minton companies is clearly stated, the need to
understand it is excused by the use of the phrase "the
Mintons name". The Minton name was used by five tile
making companies, the differences between the companies
are considerable and can not be so easily dismissed. The
showing of Mintons marks for china alongside tiles to
which they do not apply will add to the confusion which
already persists, it is not uncommon for the X found on
some late 19thC Mintons China Works tiles to be
misunderstood as the date mark for 1845. In stating,
"Minton Hollins ... for a time, even overtook Minton
in the production of tiles", the author completely
misrepresents the history, that time was the entirety of
the existence of the companies a century in Minton,
Hollins & Co.'s case, Mintons never came close to
equalling the volume or variety of Minton, Hollins &
Co.'s tile production and rarely equalled its
quality.
Michael Hollins owned the rights to Minton & Co.
name used on tiles, the problem experienced by many in
distinguishing between Mintons and Minton, Hollins &
Co. is that both had rights to the name Minton & Co.
but only for specified products. This is clearly written
in the court judgment transcribed by Barnard and can be
seen from other records. For example advertising material
for Mintons Ltd. tiles bear the title thus, Mintons
(Limited); China Works, this is to associate the tiles
with the well known Minton company in the mind of the
customer, the company called Minton & Co. Minton,
Hollins & Co.'s literature always includes the London
address and with it the brand name Minton & Co..
Below are pictures of a catalogue sheet circa 1880 and
the base of an advertising paperweight from 1903, these
are uncommon but not rare we see one every year or so,
other Minton, Hollins & Co. catalogues, letterheads
and suchlike have similar so it is no great mystery that
tiles branded Minton & Co. and Minton, Hollins &
Co. are found in the same installation.
Most of the tile designs inadvisedly attributed
to Dresser are border tiles for example Lyons shows eight
unattributed 'Dresser style' designs seven of which are
for borders. This makes little sense, if a manufacturer
was to commission a design at great expense they would be
more likely to chose a design for areas rather than
borders or friezes, they would rather sell by the square
yard than the running yard. Border designs are those most
easily copied from dados, rugs and the like, they are
also readily sourced from pottery, book covers and
innumerable other places. A comparison can be made with
the tile designs by A. W. N. Pugin for Minton & Co.,
whilst there are a goodly number of borders there are
considerably more field tile designs. Another comparison
may be made with tiles by Pilkington including designs by
Lewis Day, many were wall tile designs for large areas
and clearly so as they align in a brick pattern
formation.
Another book cited as reference for Dresser tiles is
that by Stuart Durant simply entitled Christopher
Dresser. It is a lovely book with lots of pictures of
pretty glassware, pottery and ironwork and designs for
fabrics, furniture and many other materials, it has two
page of tiles, pages 109 and 125.
109 shows four tiles, the crane design noted by
Lockett and discussed above and three others
"attributed to Dresser on stylistic grounds" but
as there is no record of Dresser designing tiles the
attribution must be considered fiction. Two of the three
are a repeating pattern of a cluster of three leaves on
stems so simple a design that attribution is not viable,
the third is by A. W. N. Pugin. If records of Dresser
designing tiles were in existence I would not think it
likely that these are by him, as there are no records I
have no doubt they are not.
Page 125 shows ten tiles arranged in groups, eight
field patterns grouped in fours but also a two and a
three as friezes, oddly considering these are repeating
designs they are all shown with gaps separating them
rather than butted up close as they should be. There are
just two lines of text which are quite remarkable for the
number of errors contained in such a small space:
Transfer printed tiles [1] for
Minton & Company [2] Stoke-on-Trent
1870 - 83 [3]. The design for the three
tiles was registered in 1870 therefore these tiles are
known to be by Dresser [4]. The other
tiles are firmly attributed to him [5].
(Private Collection, London)
[1] Some appear to be encaustic, they are well
known as encaustic patterns but not to my knowledge seen
as prints.
[2] The printed tiles most likely by Mintons,
encaustics by Minton, Hollins & Co. (although one is
a popular design made by several companies). Mintons did
not make encaustic tiles. Minton & Co. in respect of
tiles was Minton, Hollins & Co. as it had been since
1840, for a few years around 1868 - 73 Campbell the owner
of Mintons misappropriated the name. Minton & Co. of
the China Works became Mintons in 1873.
[3] The date range appears to be a guess, no
citation is given, yet the lack of 'circa' creates a
false air of certainty. Some designs appear to be earlier
and the tiles certainly continued in production until
much later.
[4] Registered in 1870 but "known to be by
Dresser" referring to the butterfly tile shown below is
wrong and misrepresents that which appears in the design
registration records. Design registrations give the name
of the registrant, usually the company in this case
Minton & Co., they do not indicate the
artist/designer, artwork may rarely be found signed but
it is not in this case.
[5} As there is no record of Dresser designing any
tiles all attributions are inappropriate, it is unknown
who made such attributions, the author appears to have
relied upon a third party. Eight of the ten designs are
in the gothic style in the manner of A. W. N. Pugin and
bear no resemblance to the other examples of Dresser's
design shown in the book including other surface
decorations such as fabrics and ceilings.
*The registration for the butterfly tile incorrectly
described as 'known to be by Dresser' in the national
archives has this note attached. "This design has
elements which are inspired by Dr. Christopher Dresser.
Much work has still to be done to distinguish between
Dresser's personal work and that of anonymous designers
trained by Dresser or inspired by his work." Designs
continued to be registered under the name Minton &
Co. until 1873 when it changed to Mintons. The tile
appears to be in part based upon a design for vase made
by Minton & Co. in 1867, see Durant page 104.