Share
Kingsware is the near black treacle glaze Royal Doulton began making at Burslem in 1899. The figures are modelled in relief in the body of the piece rather than painted on it, then picked out in amber and green so they lift out of the dark ground. Charles Noke was art director there at the time and the ware carries his taste all the way through: old English characters, hunting, drinking, Dickens.
It was made for the whisky trade
That is the part collectors tend to find out second. Kingsware was not sold to households as decorative pottery. Distillers commissioned it, Dewar's most of all, and the pieces went out full. A flask was a bottle first and the thing you kept afterwards second, which is why so much of the ware is flasks, jugs and pitchers rather than vases, and why the good ones survived at all. Somebody liked it enough not to throw it out when it was empty.
The golfers jug is the one to look at first. A golfer at the top of his swing with the ball at his feet, a caddie behind him watching it go, the fairway running green under an amber sky. Doulton kept the golf subjects in production for years and they have been chased ever since, usually by people who do not otherwise collect Doulton at all.
Kingsware Golfers Kingsware Pitcher
Nine inches. Mint, free from any flaws, damage or restoration.
$750
Indian Head 1908 Two Handled Whiskey Bottle
Lambeth, not Kingsware, and dated on the piece. Seven and a half inches.
$575
The Lambeth side of the same business
The Indian Head bottle came out of the other Doulton works, at Lambeth, where the whisky bottles were salt glazed stoneware in mottled brown rather than the Burslem treacle. Two thin handles at the shoulder, a chief in a feathered bonnet in pale relief on the front, and 1908 cut in above him. It sat on the same back bars and was commissioned the same way. Put it next to the golfers jug and you are looking at one trade through two factories.
And the characters
The rest of what came in is Noke's cast. Falstaff on a twin handled vase, the Pied Piper on another, Mr Pickwick on an airbrushed flask, a monk, and a hunting jug with the field in full cry around it. They are the subjects Doulton used across everything it made, which is the reason a Kingsware piece sits so easily beside a character jug or a figure of the same name.
Kingsware Falstaff Vase - Twin Handle
Twin handle, ten and three quarter inches.
$750
Kingsware Pied Piper Double Handled Vase
Double handle.
$750
Kingsware Hunting Jug
Eleven and three quarter inches.
$575
Kingsware Monk Vase
Twelve and three quarter inches.
$575
Kingsware Mr. Pickwick Airbrushed Flask
Airbrushed flask.
$575
Kingsware does not come up in quantity. Ed bought this lot in one go and it is on the site now. Anything you want to ask about condition, size or backstamp, write to info@pascoeandcompany.com or call 1-800-872-0195.