Dresser centenary

Magazine Antiques, May, 2004 by Miriam Kramer

Christopher Dresser was born in Glasgow in 1834 and trained in the Government School of Design in London before receiving an honorary doctorate in botany from the University of Jena in Germany. He became a lecturer and writer on both subjects separately as well as on the use of plant forms in design. By the 1860s Dresser was employed by at least thirty British manufacturers as a designer, and in 1876 he was the first European designer to visit Japan since it had reopened to the West.

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On his visit to Japan he took gifts for the Meiji emperor, including some artifacts of his own design. In return, the emperor gave him Japanese objects, among them gifts for Queen Victoria. Tiffany and Company in New York City commissioned him to bring back about eight thousand Japanese works of art. While in Japan, Dresser visited the kilns of Japanese potters, which inspired him in 1879 to found the Linthorpe Art Pottery in Teesside near Middlesbrough, England.

Dresser advocated design for the machine age--in contrast to his contemporary William Morris who promoted antiquarian craftsmanship--and he was particularly keen to use materials that were affordable. This meant, for example, that he preferred copper or silverplate to sterling silver for his metalwork.

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To mark the one hundredth anniversary of Dresser's death, the Country Seat, an antiques shop near Henley on Thames in Oxfordshire, is holding a show in which a number of Dresser objects from a private collection form a loan exhibition entitled Dr. Christopher Dresser and His Influence. It is on view from May 21 through June 11. These works demonstrate the importance of Dresser's visit to Japan on his subsequent output. The exhibition catalogue, written by Chris Morley, may be obtained by telephoning 44-1491-641349.