Mary Rich Teapot 1960's

dantheman wrote:For me, the colour and clay type was enough to identify this piece
I have poor recall when it comes to potter's marks but I always remember glazes, clay, production methods, etc and these can be spotted from 4 or 5 yards away so I tend to scan at car boot sales and antique fairs

within an hour of my last post I came across this at a car boot sale and realised it was not quite as clear cut when the form is not what I would expect of a certain potter.

As I know Mary; have seen more of her early work than most and even have a milk jug that we use with a similar glaze...... it looked like a Mary Rich piece to me before seeing the mark.

I suppose that illustrates that the more you see and handle then the more knowledge you acquire and the process never stops.

to be honest, I have never looked at Mary Rich pottery. All that gold leaves me cold.

Saw Mary Rich’s ungilded pots in Art In Action at Waterperrys and they were beautiful; pastel pink and blue glazes . It’s a shame she insists on gilding all of them

dantheman wrote:to be honest, I have never looked at Mary Rich pottery. All that gold leaves me cold.

I first met her when I had a stand at Art in Clay with second-hand pots in the late 1990s. We were in the same tent and from then on became friends (we still exchange Christmas cards). However, she knows what I think of her gilded work but, as with these things, if you do something and a number of people love it and buy it then they get annoyed if you do something completely different. She also liked doing the detailed painting work too. Over the years, I had digs at saying that I might buy it if it wasn't painted, which did lead to some non-decorated work as Naomi states, especially when the eyesight deteriorated as it does with age.

dantheman wrote:For me, the colour and clay type was enough to identify this piece
I have poor recall when it comes to potter's marks but I always remember glazes, clay, production methods, etc and these can be spotted from 4 or 5 yards away so I tend to scan at car boot sales and antique fairs

And then there are the examples where the converse is true. The pot looks nothing like the potter’s usual work but the mark is a dead ringer for theirs. And it turns out it’s an early or late piece when they potted in a different style. John Pollex, for example.


And then there are the pots where the mark is a dead ringer for someone else’s such as this plate which has a mark almost identical to Phil Rogers’ In fact it is by a different potter because I have another example, this time with an incised version of the mark, but I suspect Rogers would have had some stiff words to say to this hapless potter for using a similar stamp to his one.

I take it back, 1 hour after posting that comment it bit me in the arse at a car boot sale

Yup. Done the same. Karma or hubris? :D

A friend/customer of mine was called by a dealer, who knew he was interested in studio pottery, to say that he had one or two lidded pots by William Staite Murray. I think the dealer was thinking he was going to make a fair bit of money but the friend had to disappoint him and tell him that they weren't by Staite Murray but by a potter called John Maltby. As the dealer had never heard of John Maltby, the asking price was reduced dramatically.

Mary just emailed me to say she made my teapot in the late sixties or possibly 1970