TCC Sponsored Videos

Title: British transferware for the Dutch Market, c. 1775-1850

Lecturer:  Wytze Stellingwerf, Archaeologist and Specialist of Late and Post-Medieval Material Culture, Archeologie West-Friesland.

Description: Wytze’s lecture explored British ceramics for the Dutch market. As part of this, he also discussed the wreck of the Pieter Anthony which perished in 1822 on the way to Surinam. 

Our speaker: In 2017 Wytze Stellingwerf (1992, MA) graduated at the faculty of Archaeology at Leiden University with a study of late 18th-century politically charged ceramics and glassware in the Netherlands. This resulted in the publication of a book, called “The Patriot Behind the Pot: A Historical and Archaeological Study of Ceramics, Glassware and Politics in the Dutch Household of the Revolutionary Era.” He currently works as an archaeologist and ceramics specialist of the late- and post-Medieval period in the town of Hoorn in the northern part of the Netherlands. In addition, he regularly works at Museum Kaap Skil on the Dutch isle of Texel, where he documents finds from shipwrecks done by sport divers in the Wadden Sea and North Sea. Wytze has a great interest in the rise of the Industrial Revolution and its material and sociocultural impact in Western Europe and America, especially in the 18th and 19th centuries. Furthermore, the maritime and colonial past of the Netherlands are among his greatest interests. During his internship at the depot of the Dutch National Institute of Shipwreck Archaeology in Lelystad in 2013, Wytze came into contact with 18th- and 19th-century British transferware retrieved from various shipwrecks. This led to a never-ending fascination for the beauty and fine quality of 18th- and 19th-century British earthenware which is still abundantly available at flea markets, thrift stores and auction houses in the Netherlands. He has been collecting British pottery ever since.

Title: Staffordshire Hospitality: An Exploration of Staffordshire Transferware Made for and Used by the Hospitality Trade

Lecturer:  Ben Miller, Assistant Curator of Ceramics, The Potteries Museum & Art Gallery, Stoke-on-Trent, England

Description: Ben’s lecture explored the 300-year history of North Staffordshire ceramics created for the hospitality industry: Ceramics that have helped to quench the thirst and fill the bellies of inn and tavern patrons, cleanse hotel guests, supply banqueting halls, and cater for travellers on land, sea, and in the air.

Our Speaker: Ben Miller has worked with ceramics collections since 2012 starting his career at The Wedgwood Museum before moving on to The Potteries Museum & Art Gallery. He completed his BA at Keele University between 2006 and 2009 and his MA at Birmingham University’s Ironbridge Institute in 2010. From 2012 to 2015 he worked as a Museum Assistant at The Wedgwood Museum during which time was able to research a wide variety of topics across the Wedgwood collection and archive. In 2015 he joined the Potteries Museum & Art Gallery as Assistant Curator of Ceramics and has since worked on several exhibitions and given talks to a number of collectors’ groups.  His passion lies in Staffordshire ceramics from the 18th century to the present with a particular interest in 19th and 20th century factory production, overseas trade, and design.

Lecturer:  Jonathan Gray, Honorary Research Fellow at the Amgueddfa Cymru - National Museum Wales

Description: Jonathan’s lecture considers the range of ship prints used at the Swansea Pottery and provide a revised timescale for their introduction and development. Related prints - some found together with the ship prints - will also be discussed.

Our Speaker: Jonathan is an Honorary Research Fellow at the Amgueddfa Cymru - National Museum Wales, focusing on the ceramic output from South Wales 1764-1934. He is also the meetings secretary for the English Ceramic Circle. Jonathan has written extensively on Welsh Ceramics, and published The Cambrian Company, Swansea Pottery in London 1806-1808 in 2012. He is currently finalising a book on the Art Potter Horace Elliott who was active 1880-1934 and had wares made at Ewenny near Bridgend in South Wales. Jonathan is an active member of the TCC - he presented to the group at the 2011 Baltimore meeting on Swansea's Printed Wares - A Re-assessment. His lecture is available in article form on the TCC website, read the paper.

Lecturer: Robin Emmerson, Freelance Decorative Arts Curator, Shrewsbury, England

Description: The first printing on pottery was overglaze, and it was another three decades before pottery was printed underglaze. The study of overglaze printing presents a special intellectual challenge because an already glazed pot could have been printed hundreds of miles from where it was made, or in the same factory. The copper plate from which it was printed could also have been engraved somewhere else. Most printed pots do not have the signature of the engraver or printer in the print, but fortunately a few do, and these, together with documentary and archaeological evidence, enable us to trace the spread of the pottery printer’s skill from John Brooks and Henry Delamain at Battersea to Liverpool, Derby, Staffordshire and Newcastle-on-Tyne.

Our speaker: Robin Emmerson was Curator of the Decorative Art Department at National Museums Liverpool. Since retirement he was for six years Chair of the Northern Ceramics Society. He was one of the contributors to the TCC and NCS joint online exhibition on British Printed Pottery and Porcelain and wrote the essay on ‘Pottery and the Liverpool Trade’ in S. Robert Teitelman et al., Success to America: Creamware for the American Market (Antique Collectors’ Club, 2010).