Rare Godwin vases

Magazine Antiques, June, 2008 by Kathleen Luhrs

The recent acquisition of a pair of lively and amusing nineteenth-century vases by the Victoria and Albert Museum in London is a harbinger of the large exhibition on the aesthetic movement the museum is planning for 2010. The vases are the only known three-dimensional ceramic works by the pioneering architect and designer Edward William Godwin. One of the earliest admirers and collectors of Japanese art in England, Godwin produced forward-looking Anglo-Japanese furniture, and designed houses inside and out. It is not known what pottery made these vases (presumably the J. G. incised on the bottom stands for the potter), but the initials W. W. are believed to be those of William Watt, who made much of Godwin's furniture, and may have played a role in the production of the vases. Godwin published some designs for pottery, and there is correspondence between him and various firms, such as William Brownfield and Sons of Staffordshire, indicating his interest in producing such wares, but no examples of what he discussed are known today. The sgraffito decoration and cream slip glaze on these small vases, however, point to the West Country tradition. In 1851, for example, James Brannam of Barnstable exhibited a similar type of red clay ware covered with white slip and decorated with patterns scratched through the slip, just as has been done on this pair.

The decoration on the vases relates directly to designs by Godwin published in a furniture catalogue by Watt in 1877; on the cover are the open fan, the stork, and the roundels seen on the vases. Next to the stork on the vase illustrated at the left is Godwin's coffee table. In the catalogue he complains of others copying his furniture. Thus the cryptic vertical inscription on the vase beside the table, "KAWPHY-RITE" (pronounced copyright) ties the vases directly to Godwin. Whether he was the designer of these whimsical pieces or perhaps the recipient is not known. Catherine Arbuthnott, who wrote about them for the Bard Graduate Center's Godwin exhibition catalogue in 1999, suggested that they may be the earthenware of "Old Flemish or Early English design" that a writer in the Furniture Gazette noted on a piece of Godwin furniture displayed by Watt at the International Electrical Exhibition in the Crystal Palace in 1882. The description, which makes no allusion to the nature of the designs, at least matches the shape, color, and sgraffito decoration. A photograph in the Victoria and Albert of a Watt display designed by Godwin and James McNeill Whistler for the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1878 shows a small vase of the same shape sitting on a shelf of Godwin's Butterfly Suite. Finally, it is tempting to think that the idea for such an amusing production might have emanated from Godwin's wife Beatrix, an artist who was renowned for her sense of humor and was responsible for the tilework on some of his furniture.

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The two vases came to light in the 1980s when the London dealer Richard Reeves spotted them in an auction and recognized their likely connections to Godwin. Research on their origin continues; and however they came about they are wonderful and entertaining examples of the synthesis of styles produced in the aesthetic period. They most certainly vie with the aesthetic teapot inspired by Gilbert and Sullivan's Patience.