Studio: international art (17.1899)

William De Morgan

FRIEZE FOR A STEAMSHIP DESIGNED BY WILLIAM DE MORGAN

1859 at Cary’s old studio in Bloomsbury Street,
and was continued in the schools of the Royal
Academy, where Mr. De Morgan worked for three
years. His early practice of painting does not
seem to have been extensive, and the next few
years were mainly em-
ployed in making stained
glass. But in 1869,
whilst thus engaged, his
attention was suddenly
turned to the art of de-
corating pottery. He
noticed that the yellow
stain of silver, when over-
fired, frequently showed
a lovely iridescence,
similar to that of the
silver lustres of Deruta,
of Gubbio, and he
thought that it would be
interesting to see if the
same result could be
reproduced on the sur-
face of a glazed Dutch
tile.

When this thought
occurred to him Mr. De
Morgan was unac-
quainted with the history
of Spanish and Italian
lustre ware, with the
curious disappearance of
the latter in the middle
of the sixteenth century,
and its fortunate re-
discovery at Doccia, near
Florence, in 1856. This
was a subject, indeed,
about which very few
Englishmen had any
knowledge. Nor did

they seem at all anxious to study it thoroughly.
Several Italians had actually taught the lustre
process both in Staffordshire and elsewhere, but
the results of their teaching were so trivial as to
excite no interest whatever among artists and con-
noisseurs. Indeed, “ an
impression continued to
prevail that the process
was a secret,” says Mr.
De Morgan. “ I used
to hear it talked about
among artists, about
thirty years ago, as a sort
of potters’ philosopher’s
stone. Even now it is
sometimes spoken of as
a secret by newspaper
writers.” Yet Mr. De
Morgan believed from
the first that the iride-
scent stain of silver,
which millions of per-
sons had seen on the
backs of stained-glass
windows, could be re-
produced on the glazed
surface of a pot or tile.
So he began to make
experiments, and at last
they were so successful
that his whole attention
became absorbed in
ceramic decoration gen-
erally.

We have seen that
Mr. De Morgan’s ex-
periences as a potter
began in 1869. He
was then living at No.
40 Fitzroy Square. The
kiln was in the cellar—a

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