Notes On Certain Lustre-Ware

( Originally Published 1913 )

Collectors know a certain mark, which is roughly like the letter V, but more resembles the tick or v-shaped dash which accountants use. Before me are a pair of figures, of boys seated on tree-stumps. On the base of one of them the " tick," check-mark, or " V " (whatever one may call it) occurs in silver-lustre; on the base of the other appears the letter " W." The " W " was guessed to identify the ware with Wedgwood; though I hardly know why, for marked old " Wedgwood " is always marked as such. We may at any rate assume that a pair of figures, one marked with the "tick" and one with "W," came from the same pottery ; and if we can come across other figures, from the same mould and in the same clay and lustre, that bear the maker's full name, we may claim to have identified the potter.The Discovery. Of the pair of figures depicted here, one is marked with the " V," I say, the other with a " W." And the " W " stands for " Wood and Caldwell." We now know that it does, because in the famous collection of lustre-ware belonging to Mr. Honey, of Cork, there were a pair of figures identical with these in all but one respect. The mark in the case at Cork is " Wood and Caldwell."

Now the " Wood " in " Wood and Caldwell " was Enoch Wood; he took Caldwell into partnership in the year 1790. Figures of this kind and origin are rarely met with; in the Honey collection, however, there were a pair of Grecian women, seated and reading. Figures of this class are so solid and weighty as to resemble bronze in more ways than one when, as is usually now the case, the coating of silver-lustre has evaporated from the surface of them. Under that lustre lay, at first-it is now evident nearly all over the figure-a fine dark red-brown glaze, more coppery than bronze-like in appearance ; and such of the silver-lustre as is left on the surface anywhere has become dark and dull.

The Identification. But the special point I wish to make, and to bring to the notice of collectors, is this. The " W " of lustre-ware does not mean Wedgwood, but " Wood," and the " V " or tick or check-mark also means " Wood." The figures that bear the mark " Wood and Caldwell," and are identical with my pair in other respects, were made after Wood took Caldwell into partnership; my pair were made, and the moulds for them, by Enoch Wood; either during the period 1784 to 1790, when he was in business without a partner, or after 1818, when he bought his partner Caldwell out.

The Date Question. Among the writers on silver lustre-ware there are two of eminent authority, Mr. E. IT. Sachs and Mr. H.C. Lawlor, and on the question of the date at which lustreware began to be made in England these two authorities do not agree. Mr. Sachs considered that " there is plenty of inferential reasoning to support the theory that the ware (silverlustre) was being made between 1780 and 1790." Mr. Lawlor says that " to Mr. Sachs must be given the credit of being among the first, if not the first, of modern collectors to publish a descriptive and historical account of this ware," but adds that " he attributes the manufacture of the ware to an earlier period than is consistent with the unimpeachable evidence now forthcoming." Mr. Lawlor believes that " success first crowned the efforts of John Handcock, a practical chemist employed at the works of Josiah Spode. But it was not until after this date that the ware was manufactured to any real extent," and Mr. Lawlor gives 1800 as the year in which the manufacture of silver lustre-ware began, at Spode's.

Now if the " V " and " W " on my figures do refer to "Wood," as I think we may decide they do, it follows that those figures were coated with silverlustre prior to 1790, when the style of the firm became not " Wood," but " Wood and Caldwell." It is possible, of course, that the " V " and " W " refer to a date subsequent to 1818, when the style of the firm became " E. Wood and Sons." But I think the fair inference is that the " V " and the " W " refer to the period prior to 1790 rather than to such a time as 1818 to 1846, when the firm of E. Wood and Sons existed, in days when trade-marks had become valuable, were more elaborate, and were more carefully and regularly stamped or printed on wares than was formerly the practice. On the whole, therefore, it would seem that my pair of figures not only identifies the " V " mark with Wood, but supports Mr. Sachs' contention as to 1780-1790 being the earliest silverlustre date.