I have written extensively before about the influence of Asian countries on Western design after the opening of Japan in 1853 to Western commerce. The Chinese influence on the arts, which dominated the first half of the 19th century was succeeded by the influence of India and Japan in the last half of the century. At the 1862 International Exposition the use of blue and white in the Chinese style as well as the asymmetry and graphic flatness of design in the Japanese style was incorporated into all aspects of Western decor including painting, furniture and ceramics. This influence became particularly evident following the 1889 Exposition Universelle in Paris which celebrated the 100th anniversary of the storming of the Bastille. This exhibition also inspired fine artists of the period like Van Gogh and Claude Monet.
In this post I’m going to discuss some of the majolica pieces that resulted from this influence.
The Japanese influence of abstraction on Wedgwood was discussed here before. More so than the other large potteries Wedgwood incorporated Japanese design principles into their pottery. Their Lincoln series, their St. Louis pattern, the Grosvenor pattern, the Luther pattern and their most popular pattern, Fan all exhibited intense Japanese abstraction.
Minton and George Jones also incorporated some Japanese themes as well, though not with the fervor that Wedgwood did. Bamboo, negative space, asymmetrical design, stylization, were all hallmarks of Japanese art. Christopher Dresser in particular loved Asian design
Fielding, Forester, Shorter and Bolton, Wardle, Brown-Westhead Moore and Holdcroft made their contribution to Asian aestheticism with some of their best known patterns.
The French company Hautin & Boulanger/Choisy-le-Roi made major contributions to Western adoption of Japanese aestheticism. With their two series of Japanese inspired dessert sets, as well as vases and other decorative china, they combined Western and Eastern design heartily. Other French companies were inspired as well.
There were small companies too that did quite a bit with this iconography. One of the best examples is a series created by Moore & Co., not one of the names closely associated with the production of majolica, but their advertisements indicate that it was a major part of their production. The reason it isn’t that well known is that they didn’t mark their majolica, nor did they have a distinctive style. They did, however, produce one pattern with strong Japanese influence that was made in both majolica, parian other earthenware and was registered through the English Registration system. Cranes, repeated pattern, fans, abstraction all appear in this series.
An unknown English potter created pieces with a very distinctive Japanese look, using Japanese iconography in a Western manner.
Pioneering French potter Théodore Deck was heavily influenced by Asia particularly by the Chinese.
Other European companies such as the Czech pottery Royal Dux found inspiration in Asian design as well
The number of potteries who made Asia inspired majolica number in the dozens but I hope this will give you an idea of what was produced. For more on pieces that had Asian influence see my posts on fan inspired majolica, here, here, here and here.
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