Monster jug - Graeme James, Australian, Chipping Campden

I bought this jug unseen at auction for my collection - I knew it was big but underestimated just how big - it’s 55cm high! Beautifully thrown with a lovely pulled handle but just signed “James” to the base. Any thoughts about a maker? There are some faint numbers and letters to the base, but I think it’s a safe bet this wasn’t a glaze test firing!

CV23 9EF postcode? Seems odd but who knows.

Thank you very much - a CV postcode would make sense. A bit of research suggests CV33 9EF might be worth a bit more research, there’s a craft centre at that postcode now - maybe a pottery before?

Maybe a commission piece (it’s not the sort of thing you’d have a lot of in stock!) and the postcode is the reference for the buyer?

Fascinating piece. You would have to be a highly skilled potter to do that! One wonders if is looking at the white label which has come off as to the maker? The name on the bottom being somewhat irrelevant? Where did you buy it? Given the assumption that whoppers like this might not have travelled far from home?

Hi, it was bought in Coventry so you’re probably right, it stayed local. And yes, an extremely skillful potter, to throw a jug likey hi Sal most two feet tall is a real achievement. That’s why I find a forename scratched into the base an anomaly!

There have been a number of Studio pottery galleries in Stratford Upon Avon who might have sold it, equally Reg Moon at Torquil pottery in Henley in Arden had big two big exhibitions a years.
I don't think it looks the type of thing that Jim Malone. Mike Dodd or Phil Rogers would make. It looks a slightly older type of Leach style pottery. Geoffrey Whiting or David Lloyd Jones type potters who would actually had the skill to make this type of thing.

Graeme James, Australian, lived in Chipping Campden. Hand signed some of his work James.

Thank you - I do like to see loose ends tied up up!