Harry and May Davis, Crowan Pottery

Lovely little condiment set.

I've learned lots about Crowan Pottery from Phil Oliver's website Crowan Pottery. I have several pieces in my collection, it's always well-made and looks great on dispay. I've also sold on quite a bit - always gets good prices and seems to have quite a following in Australia - not so surprising as they moved to New Zealand and set up another pottery after Crowan. It's amazing how much pottery they produced at Crowan given they were only there 1946-62. Here's just a selection.

First their mark which I don't think varies. It's not on every single item though.



Stoneware lidded jug with brushed/resist iron oxide decoration over grey celadon glaze. 9.7cm (height)


Hot water jug with lid, brushed cobalt decoration on grey celadon glaze


Six wheelthrown stoneware eggcups with various coloured glazes. 3.6cm (height)


Tea or coffee pot with brushed cobalt decoration over grey celadon glaze.


Milk jug with brushed cobalt decoration over off-white celadon glaze


Kitchenware


Vegetable dish with brushed cobalt decoration over grey celadon glaze (quite unusual according to Phil).

Hi
 
It is really hard to get a shot of the mark however I am hoping that the form and decoration will be enough to help. Approx 5.5 inches tall with handmade and fired stoppers. Could be a capital P in a circle or C inside a square?


 
 

It's a P inside a C.

So it is from the Crowan Pottery run by Harry and May Davis in Cornwall from 1946 to 1962. Stylistically they look right too.

It's a bit odd as the terracotta colour finish is only surface deep, as you can see from the sizeable chip

I suspect the chip is due to the glaze sticking to the kiln floor.

Naomi is right about the cause of the chip but it is stoneware and the grey colour is the normal colour of the stoneware that has not been "toasted", as the surface has during firing.

A very kind gentleman has just confirmed the following:
A crowan teapot but obviously a second. I did work for a short time with Harry Davis in the late fifties and I remember there were problems with the black tenmoku glaze. The teapot you have has a very bad case of crawling, this where the glaze in firing runs back on itself because glaze not adhering to the clay body. The reason for this was because that particular glaze was double dipped. A single dip gave the rust brown quality,then they waxed areas and the second dip making the glaze thicker produced the black. So sometimes the water from the second dip lifted the glaze of the body slightly, so during the firing it pulled back.

Cereal bowl-sized. Very faint CP mark near foot rim on base.
Lidded casserole pot with same decoration - http://www.philoliver.com/pottery/harry.htm



 

Gosh - without the mark I'd never have guessed that was Crowan

The monogram is too faint to make out. Someone who knows their work well ID-ed it for me :)

I had some bowls, slightly lighter but the same strange clay body and incised pattern, by them in the past.

........... and welcome back, skip.

There's one on you-know-where, but without the V sgraffito decoration.

Lidded pot. Unmarked but typical Crowan decoration

Yes the glazed base is typical. On nearly every piece I have, the mark is glazed
over, and very hard to see, let alone decipher.

Despite the person who sold these to me saying, "Tea coffee" I think they might have had another purpose. Luckily, they hadn't been used.




I sold them to a lady in the States.

Lovely pattern but I had to flip the image, philpot, as I was concerned about it falling off the wall!

Thanks Studio. Have not posted images on here for so long,that its a learning curve again. Life is curious. Have not seen much Crowan for ages,then 3 coffee/ tea sets come up within two months.

Very nice Crowan Pottery Celadon part teaset all stamped with CP marks. I love this pottery, my favourite over all Cornish studio pottery.  

For the Harry and May Davis completist. A Crewenna bowl from their pottery in New Zealand.

Very nice Crowan pottery celadon condiments set comprising of mustard pot & salt/pepper pots. I have tried searching previous posts here on Crowan Pottery, sure there was somewhere on the studio pottery section, nothing comes up. Need a bump maybe.