Print and pattern
My latest column in Homes & Antiques is out! And while some of you have been asking why I seemed to have forgotten Minton in my travels around the Staffordshire Potteries, this month I am finally writing about this great factory.
There is a reason why I've waited until now: the story of Minton is a complicated one. We all know Minton from its fame in the late 19th and 20th centuries, but few people know about its humble stop-and-start beginnings.
This month, you can read all about this in my column: how Thomas Minton started as a talented boy learning to engrave at the Caughley factory, then moved on to engrave many of Spode's great blue transferware designs, and eventually started his own factory to compete with his old masters.
For a while he made, besides lots of beautiful earthenware in white as well as blue-and-white, some very elegant porcelain, until a financial crisis hit the country (sounds familiar?) and he had to stop production for a while. However, Minton re-emerged as one of the great porcelain makers in the 1820s and it is particularly from the period after this that we know the name.
However, it is the early porcelain that is often overlooked, in fact nobody even knew about the 1960s... and there is not that much of it around, as production was small at the time. Read all about this re-discovery in the column, and if you are tempted to own a piece yourself, you can find several early pieces and lots of later pieces here in the Minton section of my shop.
To read the column in Homes & Antiques
For a discounted subscription, head to Homes & Antiques, it is a wonderful magazine and you will be able to catch my monthly column about British porcelain. You can get a discounted subscription and order a free copy here. The free issue contains an interview with myself and several other collectors. The magazine is delivered all over the world but you can also get a digital subscription.
Where to find stock
You can find my Minton pieces here, and you can find all my available items here. If you want to stay up to date with new additions, find me on Instagram, where I put up pictures with a story several times a week.
Happy weekend! 🌸🌷🌞
This week's new treasures, and some beautiful Minton pieces:
