Our blog today spotlights a super-rare Minton tin-glazed product, frequently confused with Minton coloured lead glazes majolica. We thank The Minton Archive, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the Private Collections for assistance and use of images.
Examples are rare, often unrecognized. We searched MIS member and other private collections, museum websites, dealers, auction house sale results, ATG reports, papers and articles. Thus far, we are aware of only two examples in MIS member collections, five in other private collections, six in museums and one in our own inventory.
Could this be the next Minton product to inflame collectors’ passion? Is there an example in your own collection was awaiting discovery?
You may know what to look for already, but if you are unsure, here are some pointers.
How to recognise Minton tin-glazed v. Minton coloured lead glazes majolica
When ordinary plain lead glaze is applied direct to a ‘biscuit’ body and fired the result is a translucent, plain, impervious, durable ‘glass’ coating.
Adding a little tin to the ordinary lead glaze will produce a surface perfect for painted decoration, somewhat in the manner of fresco. The delicate brushwork painting is applied to the ‘raw’ unfired surface. When fired, the painted enamels fuse with the glaze producing the characteristic opaque whitish glaze with in-glaze enamel colours.
Minton & Co. copied Italian Renaissance maiolica calling the product ‘majolica’. A table summarizing the differences between the two Minton majolica’s may be helpful. Examples will follow.
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Minton tin-glazed majolica – Styles
Minton & Co. copied or imitated the styles of the Italian Renaissance.
[read more=”Click here to Read More” less=”Read Less”] The centres of Italian maiolica production have been catalogued as
Tuscany, ca. 1400–1580
Faenza, ca. 1470–1550
Deruta, ca. 1490–1560
Castelli, ca. 1515–40
Castel Durante and Urbino, 1508–ca. 1580
Gubbio, ca. 1515–40
‘Istoriato’ means literally ‘story painting’. ‘Grottesche’ style describes decoration primarily with grotesques. But, mostly, styles took the name of the region most famed for its production.
Tin-glaze Minton majolica was produced strictly in imitation of Italian Renaissance maiolica, with similar body, and with surfaces brush-painted in Italian maiolica styles. The naturalistic sometimes whimsical styles found in coloured lead glazes Minton Palissy-ware/majolica were never produced in tin-glaze.
Many designs were copied from examples in UK collections. [/read]
Minton Istoriato plaque, after Mantegna
In one single image this plaque invites us through a doorway to the greatest civilisation the world has ever seen. This is Minton and Co. making art and history available to a wider audience. One of five plaques exhibited at the 1862 London International exhibition, the source is a panel from the Mantegna series at Hampton Court palace copied by Thomas Kirkby and added to the design materials catalogue at the Minton factory, design G13 below. Kirkby was foremost in copying designs from Renaissance masterpieces.
Andrea Mantegna’s eight monster panels were painted to celebrate the Triumphs of Caesar. Purchased from Italian nobility by Charles I in 1629 they are now in the Royal Collection, housed in Hampton Court Palace, UK.
‘The first design for majolica’ G144, signed by Thomas Kirkby, also depicts Renaissance design elements suited for fine brushwork painting onto a raw tin-glaze coating. View it online in The Minton Archive with many more Renaissance designs for tin-glaze alongside a few coloured lead glazes designs. Sadly, tin-glazed majolica flopped. The product that boomed was the coloured lead glazes product first named ‘Palissy ware’ soon also known as ‘majolica’.
Minton Istoriato tondino after ‘Jesus and the Doctors’, signed ‘E. Lessore’
The tondino is decorated with brush-painted enamels on opaque whitish glaze, istoriato style.
Lessore’s design source we have not yet tracked down. A man’s head seems to have been added… a self-portrait of the artist?
The printed factory date mark for 1847 indicates Lessore was at this time working for Minton and Co. This relationship is known to have foundered soon after. Maybe Minton did not appreciate Lessore’s name on everything he painted for the company.
Minton Castel Durante Style Dish copied from 1520 original
Here is an example of an Italian Renaissance tin-glazed maiolica dish from the South Kensington Museum Collection (today’s Victoria and Albert Museum), copied by Minton. The copy is exact, even to the misaligned SPQR medallions. Minton added a border increasing the diameter of the plate from 9 3/4ins to 10.4ins. The museum called it a PLATE. Others call it a dish, a bowl, or a tondino.
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Minton 1860 tin-glazed copy of Italian 1510 tin-glaze maiolica tondino, 10.4ins. Playing putti in the centre surrounded by more putti, medallions with portraits, etc. were a common theme in this style of plate. Castel Durante in the Duchy of Urbino. Private Collection, UK.
Minton Mannerism, Grotesque
![Minton tin-glazed majolica design G29, from the Catalogue of Minton art materials as they were in 1871, classified by capital letter. G=Majolica [tin-glaze] Courtesy Minton Archives. The grotesques are in Mannerist or Late Renaissance style](http://madelena.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Tin-glaze-Dish-in-mannerist-style-with-grotesques.jpg)
Minton factory marks
Minton tin-glaze majolica can be difficult to recognize by its factory marks as they are often missing, either never applied, or obliterated by glaze. A full set of factory marks would look like this:
In the case of the snake handle vase below, while lacking all marks to the base, ‘MINTON’ painted prominently to the neck, and design G166 in the Minton Archive, leaves no doubt as to the maker.
A similar Minton tin-glazed majolica vase can be found in the V & A.
Minton tin-glazed majolica blanks
Were blanks for tin-glaze decoration supplied to artists not in the employ of the factory? Such an artist was J D Rochfort.
“Amateur artist. Active 1860s-70s. Took up pottery decoration as a hobby. Painted Minton pottery.” Dictionary of Minton, Paul Atterbury and Maureen Batkin, 1990.
Incised script shape number 764 appears in the list of shape numbers in Joan Jones’ book, described as: Vase with two cupid handles (M) H 14”. The ‘M’ signifies a shape and presumably a body imitating Renaissance style intended for decoration by the tin-glaze process.
Conclusion
Knowing that two Minton manufacturing processes produced products so different from each other, yet are known by the same name ‘majolica’, is one thing. The particular pleasure in recognizing the rare Minton tin-glaze majolica is quite another.
We hope to learn of many more as time goes by.
Thank you for reading.
Ben and David Tulk