European Pottery
Tuts work is in two volumes, each complementary to the other. The first volume was published as long ago as 1949 as an illustrated historical survey. The plates in that volume were chosen with great care to show the range and variety of aesthetic merit to be found in the finest pottery of the period covered. The introduction with the plates and text serves as a sufficient outline of European ceramics for a student of the arts who does not intend to specialise in the subject. The eagerly awaited second volume has now appeared under the sub-title of "Dictionary of Factories, Artists, Technical terms and General Information." Let it be said at once that it lives up to Mr. Honey's exacting standards. This monumental work— the author admits to nearly two thousand pages of typescript—is nevertheless a concise text-book for the collector and specialist student; it is easy to work with and to handle. I asked seven severe and testing questions of the book, and it produced the right answers. This at once inspires a confidence and companionship that only those who have to work with reference books can appreciate.
Articles on the main factories of Europe are authoritative, sound and quite lucidly written. Facsimiles of marks, initials and names follow the text, which is in double columns; there is also a new type of index of marks at the end of the volume. Mr. Honey in volume I quite rightly stressed the aesthetic side, and, while this side is not overlooked in the volume under discussion, here is also the hand of the expert, a master of his. craft. The author has a great gift for marshalling his facts concisely and accurately and a positive genius for having the necessary documentation comfortably close at hand.
The list of painters, potters, collectors and technical terms comprehensive and unique in its scope, but is just as thoroughl treated and is always helpful. On the opening page (29) of t dictionary for example we find a concise account of Absolon, an independent decorator working at Yarmouth. Near the end the volume on page 678 under Yarmouth is not only a cross-reference to Absolon, but a warning that Dutch Delftware with East Anglian place-names has been erroneously ascribed to Yarmouth.
Interpolated in this volume are no fewer than fifty-six general articles connected with the subject, as far apart as arcanists, ballet. subjects, Chinoiseries, public collections, enamel and enamels, forgeries, Italian comedy, lacquer, lustre decoration, "Hausmalerei," porcelain rooms and theatre subjects. Much fresh information can be gleaned from these excellent essays. The article on forgeries contains some unpleasant surprises which should be noted by collectors and others. In these days of faster travel the list of public collections at home and abroad is very helpful and much needed, though the author leaves out one of my favourites, the Musee de Mariemont near Mons, contained in a chateau in a lovely park, housing perhaps the best collection of Tournay procelain in Europe. Students will find the accounts of porcelain rooms, lacquer and "Hausmalerei" of unusual interest. How many who recall the Colditz story, relating to the incarceration of our gallant prisoners in the last war, realise that it was in this Saxon village that kaolin wag-discovered and used by Bottger in the first European porcelain body in 1708?
Miss Barbara Lynn's outline-drawings of pottery forms and especially the backs of maiolica dishes are admirable and a useful help to identification. Six maps with factory-sites and a good general bibliography complete the book. The type and format arc in the Honey tradition, and the four colour plates picked out with a sure ceramic feeling are pure temptation to buy volume I for those who have not already done so. As a work of reference it will rank with Basil Long's British Miniaturists. Many serious students will undoubtedly have the volume interleaved, as it will be indispensable and is never likely to be superseded. Messrs. Faber are once again to be congratulated on the production. A. J. B. KIDDELL.
Previous page
