The Leach Pottery. St Ives

That is a nice Bernard Leach piece you have there! Did you buy the two last pieces of Bill Marshall's quite recently at auction. I can remember seeing similar pieces online and they had a whole spiel about the Turret Hall bookshop in Kensington selling Leach pieces. Which sounded a bit dubious. No reflection on the pieces, they look nice.

[quote="Neil62"]

Neil62 wrote:Here are two pictures of yunomis by Bill Marshall
One is from his time at the Leach and has both his mark and the Leach stamp the other doesn’t and only has his personal mark but which is which?

I would say the brown one is the Leach piece, and the hakeme decorated one is the Bill Marshall one.

philpot wrote:

Neil62 wrote:

Neil62 wrote:Here are two pictures of yunomis by Bill Marshall
One is from his time at the Leach and has both his mark and the Leach stamp the other doesn’t and only has his personal mark but which is which?

I would say the brown one is the Leach piece, and the hakeme decorated one is the Bill Marshall one alone.  

Correct philpot

His work at the Leach pottery was fairly straight jacketed. They used a limited range of glazed and shapes. His single work tends to have a much wider range of glazes and forms. Hence it tends to be a lot more popular with collectors.

philpot wrote:That is a nice Bernard Leach piece you have there!  Did you buy  the two last pieces of Bill Marshall's quite recently at auction. I can remember seeing similar pieces online and they had a whole spiel about the Turret Hall bookshop  in Kensington selling Leach pieces. Which sounded a bit dubious. No reflection on the pieces, they look nice.

I bought the octagonal vase and the signed Yunomi (not the one you identified) but a later picture from the auction you describe.
The bookshop she worked in was shared with a Leach shop selling their wares.
It was the ladies daughter who was the vendor.
The Yunomi is definitely right as it has both marks - the vase has no marks at all but is well made so I have no reason to dispute it given the Yunomi and the date she claims to have acquired it.

In the 6 months I’ve been collecting I have on the whole been pleased with my purchases.
Sometimes it’s been well bought others not so well - suppose that’s the general story!!
I’ve got a few pieces by David Leach, 3 whilst he was at Leach and others after he moved on.
I’ll post them another day.

David Leach is interesting. His pieces at the Leach pottery are fairly rare. But a bit like Bill Marshall's they are limited in scope,almost purely because of the exigencies of a production pottery. In the immediate post-war years they were very busy indeed, owing to rationing.
If you are collecting David Leach be careful of the earthenware work which he produced in the mid 50's to early 60's. It is just not so accomplished as his later work, but is often sold at the same prices!

If you are looking for background information on the Leach pottery Marion Whybrow produced two books which are worth looking at. Usually available on Ebay. There is also a book on David Leach which is quite good, and of course Emmanuel Cooper's book on Bernard Leach. Emmanuel Cooper also produced a book on Janet leach. There is also a less common book on Bill Marshall which you see on Ebay sometimes.

philpot wrote:If you are looking for background information on the Leach pottery Marion Whybrow produced  two books which are worth looking at. Usually available on Ebay. There is also a book on David Leach which is quite good, and of course Emmanuel Cooper's book on Bernard Leach. Emmanuel Cooper also produced a book on Janet leach. There is also a less common book on Bill Marshall which you see on Ebay sometimes.

Thanks Philpot I’ve got one of the books by Marion Whybrow.

I’ll post my David Leach : St Ives ones tomorrow

I think this Leach tile is from c1930 but happy to be corrected

David Leach at Leach Pottery

I bought this from e bay possibly from one of you and I’m happy with it!

David Leach at the Leach pottery

I bought this at auction together with some provenance and explanation from the vendor.
There was a signed letter explaining that he had spoken with David Leach at the 1993 exhibition and conference (Dartington) about a similarly  decorated piece to this one at the exhibition.
The letter said that the piece (not this one) was one of two or three thrown by David and decorated by his father for the 1952 Dartington exhibition.
There was also a copy of the Dartington booklet signed by Marion Whybrow.

There is a picture of a similarly decorated bowl in the Dartington booklet. The piece is different to mine though presumably because David did this one on his own.

I suspect the only date which can be attributed to the piece is c1950s ie after the 1952 Dartington conference but prior to him leaving Leach pottery, but I don’t know.
David’s piece on Dartington in the booklet is very interesting for someone with no knowledge of pottery.

Neil62 wrote:Yes funnily enough I got about half the price I paid as a refund but later thought with the reports / letters etc…. It might be worth more in later years.
Maybe Janet stamped it after she’d been down the local for a few sherbets

I have seen and had other pieces with repeat on them such as teabowls. My understanding is that she did it in order to make them less expensive for visitors to the Pottery when compared to individual pieces. Very much in the way that David leach did with his Lowerdown seal in later years.

Not all visitors could afford the prices asked for her one off pieces.

When I visit the Pottery and Joanna was assisting Janet, I can only remember the REPEAT mark on the dishes you mention and so other items with REPEAT might be before Joanna was taken on.

P.S. Although Janet did got down to the local, I think most of her serious drinking was done at home.

Neil62 wrote:Unsigned Bill Marshall

Almost the last
for today - I bought this from the same vendor as the signed Yunomi, the provenance being that the vendor’s mother worked at the Leach shop in the early seventies and she purchased the vase then.
It is a heavy octagonal vase.

If someone suggested to me that this was by Bill Marshall, it wouldn't be enough for me to believe them.

The nearest thing that I have seen like this are the pots that Jeremy Leach was making around 2000 at a small pottery he had on the edge of Dartmoor. An image of the base would tell me more.

Regarding the David Leach pieces, you will notice that I have tidied them up a little, as we don't alter the thread title when posting in a specific thread. It's not a problem except that it gives we "consultants" work to do.

philpot is correct about David Leach pieces with the Leach Pottery seal being quite rare but there is absolutely nothing wrong with your two pieces. So you have started off well.

Throughout the time that Bernard Leach was working at the Leach Pottery he always used better throwers to throw many of his larger pots. In the 1930s Harry Davis did so and then David and from 1955 onwards it was Bill Marshall. I know that in the case of Bill Marshall that he threw, decorated, glazed, fired and stamped some pots with the Leach Pottery seal and Bernard's personal seal when Bernard was on his lecture tours.

philpot wrote:His work at the Leach pottery was fairly straight jacketed. They used a limited range of glazed and shapes. His single work tends to have a much wider range of glazes and forms. Hence it tends to be a lot more popular with collectors.

You are correct, philpot, but occasionally Leach Pottery pieces of Bill's were a little different, as with this teabowl from my collection.


I had to double check myself when I bought it.

The octagonal piece up there. I actually viewed this auction (it was at a Auctioneer's in Stourbridge) and handled this piece. I had my doubts.

Some of the Modern Leach production on sale in a gallery.

This was a St Ives chess set by Bill Marshall which went for £800 hammer price recently. A rare item.

Do you think this was a special commission? or made for his own use .

I think it would have been a special commission. The set had the St Ives mark on it as well. It was a working commercial pottery and there have been different sorts of oddments out of the norm at auction over the years. For a good deal of the time they only made teapots to order I believe.

philpot wrote:A small earthenware bowl,probably from the 30's.The earthenware clay is darker.

Philpot, am I mistaken or do I see writing under the glaze of this pot?

Regards,

Jay.

There was some writing on this, but I could never decipher it properly. Long gone now though, after downsizing!
In the mid early to mid 1920's The Leach St Ives pottery did a fair amount of motto work just do bring some money in. The most prized pieces are those by Michael Cardew which you still see around at auction occasionally.

philpot wrote:There was some writing on this, but I could never decipher it properly. Long gone now though, after downsizing!
In the mid early to mid 1920's The Leach St Ives pottery did a fair amount of motto work just do bring some money in. The most prized pieces are those by Michael Cardew which you still see around at auction occasionally.

Shame you never deciphered it.

My ex missus is a great niece of Michael Cardew and she has many of his pots & quite a few with quotes/mottos. She commissioned Ara to make me a tankard with a distinct logo & motto for me some years ago which I still use to this day.

Regards,

Jay.