An attribution is when someone expresses an opinion of
the origin, this is presumably based on relevant
experience in the field but does not indicate that the
cited artist/designer/manufacturer is verified.
Attributions on many tiles and in particular
Christopher Dresser tiles have been made by people,
mostly dealers, and mostly experienced in the pottery
trade. There are records of pottery companies for whom
Christopher Dresser designed and signed pieces (many
mechanical signed i.e. printed signatures so more
appropriate called a mark than a signature), very few of
these companies made any tiles the only one of note being
Mintons Ltd whose tiles are marked Mintons China
Works.
Pottery has always been collectable, pieces are
available going back several thousand years, thousands of
books have been written about pottery and porcelain.
Tiles are only a quite recent addition to the collectors
portfolio with the advert of highly decorative and
stylish tiles made in the 19thC, previously tiles were
limited to floor tiles, iznik and delft all of which are
limited in decorative aspects especially colours and
finishes. It is little surprise therefore that most of
the literature concerning ceramic design is authored by
pottery experts with scant knowledge of tile design and
manufacture.
There has always been luxury pottery, tableware
reserved for special occasions, ornamental wares such as
vases and plaques, and so highly decorative that they are
pure works of art, cabinet pieces. Tiles have
historically with rare exceptions been rather securely
affixed to floors and walls therefore difficult to pass
on through the ages as collectables. Tiles are hard and
durable and used mostly in working environments and in
high traffic areas, softer surfaces are preferred for
domestic situations, a carpet is much more pleasing than
tiles.
The use of tiles relates to the creative input,
artists design pottery, architects design tiles. This
persisted until the technicalities of tile manufacture
advanced their decorative aspects and tiles came to be
used in domestic environments as an alternative for
carvings in furniture and for ornamentation of
fireplaces. It is only in the latter part of the 19thC
that artists became involved in tile design to any great
extent, most of the noted tile designers were, or at
least began as, architects, A W N Pugin, E W Godwin, John
Moyr Smith, John Windsor Bradburn etc.
Attributions of tile designs to artists have primarily
been made by pottery experts who seemingly assume that
the similarity in the material translates to some
equivalence in other aspects ignoring or ignorant of the
differences in the mediums. Such attributions have been
made solely based on the similarity in style and indeed a
rather limited expression of style for tiles are two
dimensional objects, the form says nothing of the
designer. Three dimensional objects such as vases and
jugs grant much greater scope for artistic expression
indeed the form is often more important than the
ornament.
In the end, and especially in the case of tile designs
attributed to Christopher Dresser, all we are left with
is a similarity in style of decoration upon which to base
attributions and this is a most tenuous basis. It is as
if writers are unaware that Dresser was one of many
designers who contributed to the decoration of mass
produced wares that came with industrialisation. There is
no record of Dresser designing tiles apart from a single
design for a pavement found by Harry Lyons and only the
record was found not the design. Nevertheless
attributions of tile design to Dresser are rather
widespread and extremely tenuous for example Minton
Hollins for whom there is no indication that Dresser had
any involvement yet the fact that Dresser designed some
pottery for Mintons Ltd has been extrapolated to
incorporate tile wares of the rival company.
'Optimistic' attributions have reached a new peak with
online sales especially auctions, where regular
auctioneers have are reserved online auction sellers are
often the opposite. Regular auctioneers will carry
forward the hesitancy of the source material using words
and phrases such as 'after', 'in the manner of',
'reputedly' or simply 'attributed to' used in its strict
sense.
Online auction sellers may be totally disingenuous
cherry picking publications with known errors, ignoring
authors' caveats and extrapolating wildly. Here is a good
example, the cited image from the source book is shown
below, the tile in question is one of the leaf designs
offset and cut off at the bottom of the picture.
The source materials is as follows.
One of the earliest of Moyr Smith's tile designs to be
put into production appears to be the peacock
frieze for Maw & Co., shown at the London
International Exhibition, 1871 The design was published
as a header in the first issue of Decoration [1],
as well as in Ornamental Interiors some years later
[2]. However since there is no reference to Moyr
Smith designing for the company, nor for Dresser or
Talbert for that matter, it may have been supplied via
another studio. [My emphasis]
From this the seller claims that it was designed by
Moyr Smith whilst working at Dresser's studio and cites
the book [3] from which the above paragraph is
taken. This is the sole paragraph in the book discussing
the tiles/design furthermore the book refers to the
frieze from the panel rather than the complete panel. The
design in the header and on the tile are different,
slight differences maybe but perhaps sufficient to avoid
copyright issues.
The author notes the similarity and takes a somewhat
hesitant leap but includes caveats. The auction seller
grabs it and is off like a rocket, not only cherry
picking information but ignoring specific information to
the contrary and then extrapolating to an associated
tile.
Charles Francis Annesley Voysey is another designer
much cited by dealers and collectors in error, there is
no doubt that he designed tiles but there is verification
for just a few. Certainly he designed for Pilkington
although because a Pilkington tile bears some resemblance
to Voysey designs is in itself no justification for
attribution. Tiles by Maw and Marsden are often
attributed to Voysey, there is no evidence for this.
Other companies cited are Sherwin & Cotton & T
& R Boote again without solid evidence and with these
companies the likelihood of a connection is exceedingly
remote.
Citing inaccurate references has been demonstrated to
be an art in itself in particular from auctioneers
catalgues. Established auctioneers, both local and the
international, strive hard to be accurate in their
descriptions. They can call upon their own experience and
research the established literature but the established
literature is not without error and these may be picked
up. Auction catalogues from major auction houses such as
Sotheby's, Christies and Phillips make valuable
contributions to the literature but are best viewed as
what they are brochures for items for sale compiled
within the constraints of time and costs. Reports or
guarded attributions therein become part of the accepted
knowledge when repeated by traders, perhaps the classic
example is Christopher
Dresser by whom there are no verified designs for
tile but auction catalogues are cited as source
material.
One of the most consulted tile books is The Decorated
Tile by J & B Austwick, it is an excellent book and
was the first to illustrate a significant number of tile
versos. However it was published on 1980 and in the
intervening thirty years researchers have uncovered much
more information, in the order of one hundred material
errors have been found in it. There are 159 entries in
Appendix A Tile Backs and Marks, 159 sounds impressive
but 130 are attributed by virtue of bearing names,
initials or trade marks and 3 are unidentified. That
leaves just 26 of which 11 are to some extent incorrect.
Four appear to be completely wrong, the manufacturer
never used that verso, seven are incorrect as far as the
verso was used by several decorating companies.
This is most clearly seen in the attributions to
Sherwin & Cotton of which there are six, three are
certainly by Boote, another may be Boote, Woolliscroft or
another but that drawing is not sufficiently distinctive
to indicate the manufacturer. Whilst many early examples
of Sherwin & Cotton's decoration for sure appears on
Boote blanks Malkin has been noted, another assumed to be
Woolliscroft and another could be one of several
manufacturers. Many manufacturers especially in the
transfer print era began as decorators buying in blanks
and progressed to pressing their own, Boote were a major
supplier of blanks and pressed moulded tiles to
order.
Austwick's indicated date ranges are also incorrect in
several instances.
Making attributions is a very difficult area and
almost inevitably should include caveats, unfortunately
sellers do not always take them on board. In truth there
are very few tiles that can be with any degree of
certainty ascribed to a particular designer, the vast
majority were simply in a the style of the times. Good
and great artists are always on the look out for new
sources of inspiration, an artist may see a design and
think,"that is nice but I'd do it slightly differently"
and so they do. Identical copying was common, one only
has to look at the famous Mintons Ltd to see, even so
many designs appear by more than one manufacturer but one
can not say that one copied the other for they may have
take the design from the same source such as one of the
many art reference books that were published.
I am confident that wherever an attribution given by
Tile Heaven is at variance with other sources Tile Heaven
is correct. Far from trying to associate a tile or design
with a famous brand I am much more interested in
discovering the unknown working class heroes who made so
much of what we enjoy possible. It is remarkable how
designs by famous designers tend to be uncommon i.e. not
very popular in their day whilst the popular designs are
mostly by unknown artists. Pugin and Moyr Smith are the
only designers of repute whose wares are common, designs
by the famous such as Lewis Day, Charles Voysey, and E W
Godwin are rarely found compared to those by unknown
designers and many works by unknown designers are
attributed to the famous, those whose designs were not
very popular. Strange world isn't it.
[1] No date given and I can't readily locate
it.
[2] 1880
[3] John Moyr Smith 1839 - 1912 A Victorian
Designer by Annamarie Stapleton