Friday 18 April 2008

Elijah's plate





Earlier in the week I mentioned a small plate that I keep in the workshop made by Elijah Comfort in about 1930, here are some pictures of it. It's about six inches in diameter. I love the chunkiness of this little plate, it's chunky but somehow not heavy - great skills. The back's lovely too, galena is such a beautiful glassy glaze even when it's just brown over the clay body.

Elijah would never decorate his pots so they would be decorated by either Sidney Tustin or Michael Cardew. I've got a similar plate which was both made and decorated by Cardew, but it's much more refined.

This Elijah plate was decorated by Sid. I once showed Sid this plate and the Cardew one, to which he said in his broad Cotswold accent,'Ah, Michael always could lick me with a comb!'

I have to say I like this 'unrefined' one much better. I'll try and find the Cardew one some time and I'll stick a picture on here so you can make the comparison.

2 comments:

Paul Jessop said...

Hi Doug I love that plate the decoration is just fantastic, just so fluid.
I will be back on the blog this week as I am looking at your site while i am waiting for a flight home from China. Glad to hear the shows went well, the pots in the London one look great.

Matt Grimmitt said...

Interesting way to change the use of a flowerpot saucer too. It's such a nice little pot that one, clever old bugger. e's an early un!