CHRISTLETON
Curios and Curioser
BY PHILIP HARLAND
A Birkenhead Renaissance
The Della Robbia Pottery
Green man Relief, Birkenhead Central Library
The Della Robbia Company c.1900A confession: over the years I have not always been Birkenhead's greatest admirer. I've been guilty of viewing it simply as the place you pass through on the way to Liverpool. A recent visit to the Williamson Art Gallery, however, forced me to reconsider that unfair judgement.
Madonna Enthroned, Medici chapel, Santa Croce Florence c.1450
The gallery's exhibition of Della Robbia Collections - Silliamson Art Gallery pottery reveals that, for a brief but remarkable period, Birkenhead stood at the forefront of artistic innovation. Founded in 1894 by Harold Rathbone, the Della Robbia Pottery – inspired by the Italian Renaissance sculptor and artist Luca della Robbia (the example above from the Santa Croce basilica in Florence shows just how much Rathbone must have admired the style) - embraced the ideals of the Arts and Crafts movement, championing individual craftsmanship at a time when mass production was rapidly taking over.
A plaque depicting William Morris. Della Robbia Pottery, 1897.
Alfred the Great, after Ford Madox Brown
Harold Rathbone insisted that each piece created and painted by his eclectic team of potters and artists was unique: this refusal to compromise was, in the end what forced him to wind up the company in 1906. It simply cost too much to produce individual pieces of art pottery. Other companies, not least Doulton somehow managed to find a middle road maintaining individuality AND commercial viability.
The influence of the Pre-Raphaelites is unmistakable and really not surprising: Lord Leverhulme of Port Sunlight was typical of 19th century Northern industrialists who went out on an artistic limb collecting ‘modern’ art. The rich colours, flowing designs, medieval themes and love of nature bring to mind the work of Rossetti and Burne-Jones. Looking around the exhibition, it is easy to imagine these ceramic masterpieces sitting comfortably alongside the paintings and decorative arts that inspired them.
