Ruskin Pottery Crystalline Matt Glaze Baluster Art Vase c.1925

Art pottery vase from the Ruskin Pottery. Striking matt crystalline glaze. Footed baluster form vase in off-white to tonal greens. Impressed mark for Ruskin. The vase is 23 cm in height and 11 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 formulas for the glazes and all the pottery documentation were deliberately destroyed, so that the unique Ruskin products could never be replicated.