Featured Help identifying a vintage bowl

Hello. We have had this bowl for a number of decades, and we are in the United Kingdom. The bowl has a width of approximately 11 cm and a height of about 6 cm. It looks like there might have originally been a gilt rim to the top of the bowl that has now mostly rubbed off. From the research I have just done I would guess it is English or French from the 1940s or 1950s, but I am really not sure. Does anyone have any ideas? I would be very grateful for any advice.

Best wishes,
James

 

Hi James

its quite an unusual one isn't it

if we ignored the decoration aspect, you'd almost think asian with that glaze ( iron spots etc)

don't think i've ever seen them (if thats what they are) on anything that wasn't chinese

but of course we can't ignore the decoration (which looks not chinese)

also its small enough to be a tea bowl......but the shape is off for a chinese teabowl

if i had to guess...........i think quite an early british attempt at a chinese teabowl

is the paint work under a glaze, or right at the surface ?

 

Hello Charlie.

Yes, those are definately the iron oxide spots that you would typically see in Chinese ceramics.

The red and the green paint is right at the surface and you can feel it raised if you run your finger across it. I include some close-up images of the paintwork, where you can really see the brush strokes for the red and green.
I wonder if perhaps there were British people that would import plain glazed Chinese teabowls and then paint on them? It perhaps seems unlikely because the UK (in places like Staffordshire) did not have any shortage of capacity to make ceramics (I think fairly cheaply), but I totally agree with everything you say about the appearance apart from the decoration appearing Chinese. Furthermore, if you put the image of the base into Artificial Intelligence then it thinks it is Chinese.

Best wishes,
James

 

yeah they did actually buddy...early on...and can't quite remember the name

but that usually had the chinese underglaze blue on them as well, was just overdecorated over here (over glaze)

so still a possibilty (i couldn't say anything about this piece definitively )

 

cobbled or something terrible like that if i remember

 

Very interesting. I have just been looking into this, and this process of overpainting that you are referring to is called "clobbering". Seems like it was done in England and Holland in the 18th century. But, as you say, there is none of that classic cobalt blue underglaze on this piece!

Best wishes,
James

 

I have a jug with similar decor, although sans iron spots. Think they might have different beginnings in life but ended up in the same market. Similar items to mine suggest early 20th C. There are a few like mine on eBay but the links are 20 pages long so not posting..