Large Ruskin Pottery High Lustre Vase 1918

Most gorgeously coloured large lustre-glaze art vase from the Ruskin Pottery 1918. The vase is of high shouldered form with roll rim neck. Decorated in an all over deep lilac lustre glaze producing a most stunning range of colours in different light angles (with apologies for my poor efforts in capturing this!). Impressed marks for Ruskin and dated 1918. The vase measures 25 cm in height and 15.5 cm maximum diameter. Edward R. Taylor (the first Principal of both the Lincoln School of Art and the Birmingham School of Art) founded Ruskin Pottery in 1898 – placing his son, William Howson Taylor (formally a student at the Birmingham School of Art) as manager. They named the pottery after the artist, writer and social thinker John Ruskin; whose principles about beauty and quality they believed in. The pottery experimented with glazes, producing innovative designs across a range of items, from vases and bowls to jewellery and buttons. Ruskin Pottery was exhibited both in the Uk and abroad at international fine art exhibitions – achieving "grand prize" in 1904 at the St Louis International Exhibition, giving them the recognition they needed. Further awards were gained at other international exhibitions, including Milan 1906; Christchurch, New Zealand, 1907; London 1908; Brussels 1910; Turin 1911; and Ghent 1913. When the studio closed in 1935 the formulae for the glazes and all the pottery documentation were deliberately destroyed, so that the unique Ruskin products could never be replicated.