An excellent pictorial tile from a series of twelve
'Children's Pastimes' this being of three children
playing 'horses and cart', a series that comes to market
most infrequently which is most unfortunate for they are
excellent tiles in all respects. The artwork, engraving,
printing and Maw's great manufacturing skill - bright
white clay, fine line printing and clear and brilliant
glaze. Almost certainly the work of Owen Gibbons who
designed maybe half a dozen pictorial series for Maw
& Co. With Maw's badge and naming for the Broseley
works so pre 1885.
Owen Gibbons trained at the South Kensington School of
Art and was for a time curator of the Royal Architectural
Museum in London before becoming head of the
Coalbrookdale School of Art in Shropshire, whilst there
he designed a number of tiles for Maw & Co. Later he
went on to a partnership in Gibbons Hinton & Co,
another maker of outstanding tiles.
Owen Gibbons is my favourite of all the artists
represented on 19thC transfer printed tiles, he achieved
a clarity of line equal to that of Walter Crane yet
combined it with hatching and shading that gives depth
without detracting. His designs were purpose made for
tiles rather than with tableware as the primary end
product as with many designs by the pottery and tile
makers such as Wedgwood, Mintons China Works and Boote,
and are designed to be well viewed from some distance as
well as close to. Rarely found with his OG monogram to be
absolutely sure of identification but his style is
distinctive.
Maw & Co were the greatest of all the Victorian
tile makers, not only mass producers, the largest company
in the world for a decade or more, but also producing
fine artistic works of such quality not normally
associated with large companies. Not only did their mass
production techniques exceed the quality of all the
better known names such as Mintons and Pilkington but
they also used more techniques than any other company. In
the 19thC there are just a few small niches in which
other companies surpassed Maws excellence, de Morgan in
multicolour lustres, for a time W B Simpson with their
brilliant underglaze colours (they were London agents for
Maw & Co), Mintons China Works in Reynolds Patent
multicolour printing, Marsden for stencilled slip and
Sherwin & Cotton for their émaux ombrants
(mostly 20thC really). No tile printer was as good at
fine printing, or glazing, or moulding, or as versatile,
they produced more patterns than all the Minton companies
combined, it was only when art nouveau came along in the
twentieth century and George and Arthur were no longer
involved that the company lost their preeminence.