In a welcome break from buying my usual large and heavy pieces of furniture I’ve bought some nice pieces of ceramics recently including some Moorcroft Pottery.
Moorcroft is a renowned British pottery company and a name that a lot of people will be familiar with. The company was founded in 1897 in Staffordshire by William Moorcroft and generations later they are still producing top quality handcrafted pottery.
William Moorcroft's love for nature and his fascination with the Art Nouveau movement greatly influenced the early designs and the company have stayed true to these roots to the present day. William Moorcroft drew inspiration from the English countryside and Moorcroft Pottery is known for its nature inspired motifs incorporating flowers, leaves and other botanical elements.
One of the defining features of Moorcroft Pottery is its vibrant and intricate tube-lining technique. This technique involves applying thin lines of clay onto the surface of the pottery, creating raised outlines. These outlines are then filled with coloured glazes, resulting in a distinctive and eye-catching almost three dimensional effect.
You can see this raised detail on this bowl which is decorated in the ‘Orchid’ pattern and dates from around 1940. The dark blue is also a preferred colour which we see used a lot on Moorcroft pieces.
It’s fairly easy to identify Moorcroft Pottery as it will always be stamped. This stamp can also help to date a piece as it changed over the years, gaining a Royal Warrant in 1928 and moving to the signature for Walter Moorcroft, William’s son, in the 1940s. Sometimes pieces can be signed by the artist too and numbered if it's a limited edition. More modern pieces are also stamped with symbols for the exact year of manufacture
There’s a strong following of Moorcroft collectors worldwide and older pieces as well as some of the more modern limited edition pieces can be just as sought after. As with any ceramics, condition is key, and any damage will drastically reduce the value of a piece.
One thing to watch out for with Moorcroft in particular is seconds. Every piece made in the Moorcroft factory is checked for quality and graded. Any pieces which are not found to be top quality - say for example the colours might have run or faded or there may be some firing flaws - are graded as ‘seconds’ and sold at a reduced price. It can sometimes be hard to spot a second but they are always marked in some way so it’s worth checking as these are of course worth less than first quality pieces.
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