Info | Tiles For Sale | Contact | Ordering | www.tileheaven.co.uk | www.tile-heaven.co.uk | www.tileheaven.com | www.tile-heaven.com

 

 

 

Sherwin & Cotton Patent Niello Tile


• Condition: Fine
• Price: £120 (approx. $164)
• Stock number: 07216

UK Special Delivery + £11

Europe Priority +£16

US and World Priority +£26

Currency Converter
Ask a question

Very small, slender chip lower right edge, top left corner a paint miss, other very minor marks.


 

Style: Floral
• Technique: Patent Niello
Maker: Sherwin & Cotton
Dimensions: 6" x 6"
Date: 1893 (circa)

 

A nice floral design in earth tones with a brilliant glaze. There's a very unique sense to the finish, no doubt it could be achieved by hand but at some great cost, this is actually a very clever printing process but I'm not quite sure how it was achieved. One thing has come to light, quite obvious once noticed but otherwise elusive indeed it has to my knowledge eluded all other tile writers and likely most if not all collectors.

Sherwin & Cotton was the leading art tile specialist traversing the intersection of art and technology and Niello tiles are a brilliant example for what gives them their unique feel and appeal is a product of something tile makers otherwise only first achieved to limited extent in the mid 20th century. The decoration is applied before the clay is fired.

Making a decorated, glazed tile in a single firing has long been an aim of major tile makers, one sees it in some pottery tiles but the results were too inconsistent for mass-producers and one never knows what the success rate of the pottery tiles was for the volume of scrap output has always been high in ceramic manufacture at least until the mid 20th century. The part of the process where faults would reveal was in firing so reducing tile manufacture to one firing was always desirable.

The limitation was in the colours available for similar to encaustic and barbotine tiles the colours had to withstand the higher teperature of clay firing not the lower temperature of glaze firing nevertheless Sherwin & Cotton used some bright colours with the Niello process..

The Niello clay is often speckled like a sparse oatmeal clay, it may have had slightly higher moisture content for shrinkage flaws, or not flaws because they were intended, frequently occur in Niello tiles. The most obvious clue is that the pattern number is frequently incised in to the back, one can't easily do that with fired clay and it means the pattern was known before the clay was fired.

Mass produced wares especially decorated wares were criticised by the arts and crafts advocates and manufacturers for being too uniform yet there is a certain sameness that is required for sets of things to work and that is very expensive to achieve by hand. It is amply demonstrated by arts & crafts pottery, one sees vases and chargers, a few jugs and not a lot else. The main business in pottery is tableware, fifty, one hundred, two hundred pieces all which have to look as if they belong in the set, arts & crafts simply couldn't do it.

William de Morgan didn't really do it in tiles, most being painted to outlines the outlines being created in various ways. We know some were painted on tracing paper in Italy and shipped to London for applying to tiles, it certainly wouldn't surprise me if he used a printed outline that would burn away in the kiln, carbon printing had already been invented. Some companies employed good artists to paint not to any form of outline but from the drawing in the pattern book, we see fabulous freehand painted tiles from Craven Dunnill, quite amazing work from the Decorative Art Tile Company, William Yale etc yet all manner of companies produced some properly painted works.

So the innovative tile companies tried to produce mass produced goods with a degree of randomness that makes every piece unique in a similar way to the slight variations that occur with stencilling, Marsden certainly tried and had a couple of printing patents that seem to have been aimed at introducing some variety, I am pretty sure that Maw did. Patent Niello was such a printing method from Sherwin & Cotton combined with the managed unpredictability admired by the arts & crafts movement. Sherwin & Cotton was truly at the intersetion of art and technology.

Verso clear of adhesive etc, some smoke stain, embossed knot in triangle mark and England, painted pattern number.


• Condition: Excellent
• Price: £90 (approx. $123)
• Stock number: 07216B

UK Special Delivery + £11

Europe Priority +£16

US and World Priority +£26

Currency Converter
Ask a question

Tiny surface chip near mid left edge, tiny chip bottom right corner, very minor sruface marks.


 

Information
Tiles For Sale
Contacts
Order Information
 

 

 Alternate addresses: www.tileheaven.co.uk | www.tile-heaven.co.uk | www.tileheaven.com | www.tile-heaven.com

Copyright 2001 - 2021, All rights reserved