The Victorian era in Britain was not a humdrum age. Over the period of Queen Victoria’s reign (1837‱901), Great Britain contended with near constant change reflected in engineering feats and a constant flow of inventions in all areas of industrial production. From state craft to the dinner table, the rise of the middle class in economic and political power gave birth to new technologies and innovations in all areas of commerce and life, but none so striking as those in the decorative arts.
On Monday, December 10, Nicholas Dawes, vice president of special collections for Heritage Auction Galleries in New York City, will put into context the developments in ceramic design and technologies of this era with the social, economic, political, technical and cultural events of the time. His talk, “Reform, Railways & Revivalism: Cultural Influences on Victorian Ceramics,” presented by the Connecticut Ceramics Study Circle, will take place at the Bruce Museum, beginning at 1 pm.
Though art historians have defined the Victorian period as Britain’s Second Renaissance, clashing realms of haves and have-nots drove major reforms at all levels of society and life, while, at the same time, innovative technologies in transportation and manufacturing supported an array of revival styles that found their way into new-built homes and offices. In the late Nineteenth Century, talented designers, such as William Morris and Christopher Dresser, looked to the past and to nature as antidotes for the brutalities of their industrial age.
Majolica ware, as one example of Victorian romantic revivalism, will be featured in Dawes’s illustrated lecture. This colorful and robust molded pottery has been a special interest of Dawes for many decades, and his treatise Majolica , published in 1989, is considered a standard work on the subject. He grew up near the potteries in England and has more than 40 years experience in the world of antique ceramics. He is the former specialist and auctioneer for Phillips Auctioneers, a former vice president of Sotheby’s and since 1983 has been a faculty member of Parsons School of Design in New York.
The lecture fee for nonmembers is $20. As always, refreshments are included and served following all presentations.
The Bruce Museum is at 1 Museum Drive. For information, 914-921-0621 or email info@ctceramicscircle.org .
