The Leach Pottery. St Ives

Large Z bowl

philpot wrote:Interestingly there was a St Ives bowl with Colin Pearson's  ciecle mark on it at Auctioneers Kingham and Orme in Evesham on Saturday 5 December. Hammer price of £80. So he musy have been at Leach St Ives at some time, but there is nothing in the books about it.

I checked out the bowl and, although it might have been by him, I wouldn't be convinced by what the auction house has said, as it is all a little vague.

Likewise I thinks it a good policy, from years of experience, to never believe anything any auction house says to help to sell a piece, without you being able to verify it through what you know or what you can find out elsewhere.

philpot wrote:The mark on the piece.
https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/358317714110001966/

That looks pRetty much spot on for Colin Pearson's older work.

I accept that the mark looks like Colin's but not for work from 1954, which is the date given by the auction house. At that time Colin was either still at Winchcombe making earthenware, at Doulton in Lambeth before going to Aylesford to produce earthenware at the Priory where is mark was not like this.

I have come across a number of Leach Pottery items with personal marks that I have not been able to identify. I imagine at the time it wasn't given much consideration and if someone started to attempt it now then it would be too late.

So I have absolutely no idea, who made the bowl and I am not even ruling out Colin Pearson. However, I have seen nothing to indicate that he made a single pot there. If there was some evidence that Colin went to the Leach Pottery in the 1960s to help him get used to throwing stoneware rather than earthenware that he had used until then, I would think that the bowl in question was his.

However, with the vague information that we have, I would not buy it believing it was by Colin or sell it with the suggestion that Colin made it.

NaomiM wrote:Certainly looks like Pearson’s mark with the St Ives mark. The style looks very Aylesford-like. If I hadn’t seen the marks my first guess would have been Aylesford Pottery. I wonder if Pearson and David Leach developed the Aylesford range at St Ives?

David and Colin did that at the Priory and in the beginning it was earthenware, just as David was using at Lowerdown. By the stoneware days, David was keeping away from St. Ives and Janet! Remember both David and Michael Leach left the Leach Pottery when Janet came on the scene in 1955. Therefore the logic is that if Colin would have needed to go anywhere to practise throwing stoneware in the 1960s it would have been Lowerdown or almost anywhere other than St. Ives.

Are these marked, philpot?