HIBISCUS
(this is an extract from
Newsletter Number 12, March 2001)
I recently purchased among other Moorcroft a 5" ovoid HIBISCUS vase circa 1978 which I decided to keep rather than add to my stock for resale. It was a modest piece, but it formed a pair with one I bought new 29 October 1978 from Henry Little & Son of Lancaster, now, I understand, no longer trading in the town. Like my other, it was on a dark green ground and featuring a yellow hibiscus on one side, and a red on the other. It did not form a matching pair, except for the size and design : in my estimation it was a much better example. The yellow hibiscus was of a much deeper, richer yellow, with more pleasing mingling of the colours to the centre, and the red too was much richer and more pleasing. However, I decided the two would be interesting to keep as a pair.
I still have the bill for the first I bought - documentation is always useful - and I can see that my first piece cost me £7.90. My recent purchase which would have cost a similar amount 22 years ago had cost me a three figure sum, and if it were for resale I would try to resell it for around £225.
Even taking its current value at a conservative £100 level, this represents an in excess of twelvefold increase in value over 22 years, and if we were to take a resale price of £225 this would represent about 28 times the original cost price! Quite a staggering statistic! (I purchased my house 21 years ago, and its current resale value would be less than 5 times, let alone 10 times what I paid for it!)
It would be nice to write a fairly full feature on Hibiscus as it`s Walter Moorcroft`s longest running design, and one that can claim originality as well as success. Unfortunately I haven`t early examples to hand to refer to and illustrate, when the design was more fully developed, and integral on the piece as his father`s work usually was, and these early versions are very fine indeed, and difficult and expensive to acquire. (See Moorcroft Pottery P 123 for a good example, 1978 edition of the book; in the Revised Edition 1897-1993 it is P 145).
Hibiscus is an exotic flower, and particularly the yellow flowers in the more common pieces are very attractive with interesting varied colour effects to the centre. Where the design really comes into its own is in Walter`s highly important and superb flambé work when these exotic flowers transmuted in the flambé process usually became quite magnificent. I treasure in my own collection a 12 ½" elongated ovoid example with a spray of two magnificent blooms to the front in indescribable hues of reddish orange with mingling blue, green & yellow to the centre. The transmuted green of the leaves is also not to be overlooked as a wonderful colour effect. (Sadly to the rear of the vase is a rather pathetic, despite the transmuted green, two leaf sprig without a flower! Long gone are the wonderful integral designs!). But still a splendid vase I love. The background colour has resulted in a dark to light brown shading with the original dark green to the base turning a dark charcoal.
This flambé work was discontinued 1970 with the advent of natural gas, and its chemistry based on coal firing will never be revived. Walter did briefly do some flambé experiments in the late eighties with the modern fuel, which in comparison with earlier results were not fully successful and soon discontinued. (Walter refers to them in his book "Memories of Life & Living" P 93.) However, the effects are highly interesting, and the small numbers produced will mean that these experimental examples will be difficult to acquire.
I`d like some time to illustrate examples from my own and a friend`s private collections - at the moment there are difficulties reproducing the images which have been taken by digital camera and I have not yet sufficiently mastered the technology! (I had originally intended to include illustrations to these notes on Hibiscus, and taking it through to late eighties examples.) Also the illustrations would be better in colour in the newsletter and I don`t yet know the economics of this. Among these late eighties flambé experiments there is evidence some turned out well, and I would like to demonstrate this. Certainly they`re worth looking out for, and acquiring if you find them interesting. And like all flambé they are unique.
ILLUSTRATIONS TO NEWSLETTER FEATURE 'HIBISCUS' ABOVE (added later)
Unfortunately the quality of some of the illustrations is not good, they were some of my first efforts with the digital camera and the settings were not the best for online use - I hope to replace some of them in time with examples that do better justice to the pottery.
5" Hibiscus vase purchased new 29 October 1978 for £7.90, and detail of yellow hibiscus (private collection).
5" Hibiscus vase purchased December 2000, price range £150 - £250, and detail of yellow hibiscus (private collection).
Magnificent 10 ½" elongated ovoid flambé Hibiscus vase circa late 50's
(private collection).
7" pear shaped flambé Hibiscus vase, dated 11 January 1988 (courtesy private collection).
7" Hibiscus flambé vase late 80's, strangely bearing John and not Walter Moorcroft's painted monogram (private collection)
3 ½" Anemone flambé pear shaped vase, late 80's; a delightful and successful flambé piece, though the colours are in darker, more muted tones. The two outer images show both sides (courtesy private collection).
9" across, late 80's flambé Hibiscus dish (courtesy private collection), and 9" across, Chestnut Leaf flambé dish, dated 19 January 1988; an excellently successful experimental piece, though the colours have different qualities to the earlier, brighter and more vivid colours (private collection).
Copyright © Appleton Antiques 2001
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