In my previous career I had the pleasure to work for a school that was located at St Donat's, one of Britains' best medieval castles in Wales. They had an original Tudor-era "Beastie Garden"; a rose garden with a circle of heraldic beasts on high plinths. I was told that if you would stand in a place where any of the beasts would not be able to see each other, you would disappear and never be seen again. So you can imagine I am a little bit fascinated by this wonderful 1840s

[click the < arrows > to slide!] I am sometimes asked: what is the difference between "tooled" gilt and "raised" gilt? And what about "chased" gilt? The simple answer is: they are all the same. Perhaps a professional gilder will disagree, but then I'd love to hear in detail what the difference is, as I have not been able to find out myself! Today we have a stunning piece of art: a vase in the Persian Revival style with a tooled/chased/raised gilt image of a very English spoon

These two vases with covers are a sublime piece of artistry. They were made by Royal Worcester in 1907. The late Victorians and Edwardians really loved their vases and I have shown several lately (and some more to come!). They were meant to be centre pieces in the interiors of beautiful homes, showing off the owner's wealth but also refining people's taste. The Victorians had a keen sense that the home would make the person, and therefore it was essential to create beautiful

A while ago I showed the two beautiful Minton figures of Miranda and Lalage in celadon "parian" china, and last week I showed the stunning Copeland potpourri vases with parian cherubs. Today I have another one of these wonderful parian porcelain items: a Minton tazza, again made of white and celadon parian china, this time fully glazed. Parian china was difficult and expensive to make; it needed a special machine to create the slip, and mixing in the colour for the celadon ma

You will have seen sculpted putti, or cherubs, like these before, and here is the story of how these were made. They were made of parian porcelain, which was the invention of Thomas Battam, the Art Director of Copeland (formerly Spode). He wanted to make figures with more definition, like the German and French factories were able to make. As soon as he had presented his new invention to the world in 1844, Minton copied it. They became the more famous maker of parian figures;