In the mid-nineteenth century, when the new wave of archaeology swept the country, enthusiasts began to discover the sites of the old kilns, and to examine and record the designs of surviving medieval tiles in cathe- drals and churches. Furthermore, in 1843 Prince Albert was present at a soirée at the home of the Marquis of Northampton, at which a revival of the technique was demonstrated. Soon afterwards its author, Herbert Minton, was commissioned to exercise his skills in tiling floors at Osborne, Isle of Wight, the summer residence of Queen Victoria. Born in 1793, Herbert was the son of Thomas Minton, whose business he had joined in 1817; by 1828 he had become interested in reviving this lost craft: the company were soon foremost in producing large quantities of tiles, and for a rapidly growing market further stimulated by the work of the most prominent architects, among them Augustus W.N. Pugin. [Insall 194]

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Vessels

Parian Ware

Tiles

Related material: Medieval exemplars that Minton imitated

Bibliography

Insall, Donald. "Historic Floors at Risk: St George's Hall, Liverpool." Historic Floors: Their Care and Conservation. Edited by Jane Fawcett. Oxford: Butterworth/Heinemann, in association with ICOMOS UK, 2001. 194-97.

Majolica Mania: Transatlantic Pottery in England and the United States, 1850–1915. Ed. Susan Weber, with Catherine Arbuthnott, Jo Briggs, Eleanor Hughes, Earl Martin, and Laura Microulis. 3 vols. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2021. [Review]

“On Encaustic Tiles.” Art Journal (1851): 146-47, 176-77, 220-21, 261. Hathi Trust Digital Library version of a copy in the University of Michigan Library. Web. 28 July 2013. [Complete text in the Victorian Web.

Pearson, Lynn. Tile Gazetteer: A Guide to British Tile and Architectural Ceramics Locations. Tiles and Architectural Ceramics Society, 2005.


Last modified 23 April 2022