Date: Circa 1885
Period: Late Victorian
Maker: T.C. Brown-Westhead, Moore & Co.
This dessert comport by Brown-Westhead, Moore of a painting-within-a-painting is a tour de force of technical virtuosity and Gothic imagination.
The background is a winter scene of snow-covered reed beds and bare trees on the banks of a river or lake that reflects an orange sky at sunrise or sunset. In the centre is another diamond-shaped painting, its ‘canvas’ seemingly folded between the trees, of a ruined castle atop a hill. The season has changed, and light from a moon half-hidden by clouds shimmers on water beside reeds that have shed their snow, while trees are in leaf. The mysterious scene is repeated in miniature on the pedestal base.
On the main background image, the sky is realistically tinged orange, yellow and blue through skilful staining of glaze. The orange reflection in the foreground is also coloured glaze. On-glaze painting appears all done by hand, either freehand or by hand-colouring within printed outlines. The rim is gilt-edged.
The pattern number painted on the base is B5442. The pattern was introduced around 1885.
Condition Perfect apart from a few surface scratches.
Diameter: 22.8 cm; Height: 8.4 cm
Weight: 710 g
Medium: Bone china (porcelain)
Origin: Stoke on Trent, England
For background on the factory, see Brown-Westhead, Moore & Cauldon in Makers & Artists
