Arts and Crafts tiles and the £8 discovery on a Devon Market

The tile was bought at a Devon Pannier (a West Country indoor market) for just £8 in June, just after coronavirus lockdown restrictions were eased.

The owner spotted it at the Tavistock Pannier Market, listed as “A Cornish tile” but they immediately recognised it as by Arts and Crafts artist William De Morgan (1839-1917) and took it to Salisbury auction house Woolley & Wallis to value it.

It is now estimated at £800-1200 at W&W’s October 6-7 Arts, Crafts and Design sale.

View and bid for this William De Morgan tile via thesaleroom.com.

W&W’s design specialist Michael Jeffery said: “Lockdown was a frustrating time for collectors, as it was for everyone. Auctions, fairs and markets had been cancelled and although an online market thrived, it’s not the same as being able to get out and handle items and find treasures. So to come across a tile like this on your first outing in months must have been a real treat.”

A detail of the 6in (15cm) square William De Morgan late Fulham period lustre tile featuring a long-tongued beast painted in blue and silver lustre on a white ground with red lustre grasses. It has an impressed factory mark.

The Arts and Crafts movement, which De Morgan was part of, advocated that decorative arts should be handmade with traditional methods and he and his workshop created tiles the ‘old-fashioned’ way.

De Morgan started experimenting with lustre glazes in the 1870s, inspired by Middle Eastern ceramics of the 15^th and 16^th centuries. His designs came into their own after he moved his factory from Merton Abbey to Fulham in 1888. Lustre decoration is achieved by introducing metallic elements into the glaze.

However, as W&W’s Jeffery explains: “Ironically, he didn’t have much financial success during his time at the Fulham pottery. It is really since his death that collectors have become inspired by his works, and especially in the last decade that prices have really taken off.”

In June 2012, £5100 (plus 20% buyer’s premium) was bid for a rare monochrome blue and white kingfisher De Morgan tile – a record bettered in December 2013 when a Sands End period tile painted in shades of blue and green with a pair of chameleons took £7200 at Woolley & Wallis – the current record for a William De Morgan tile. Last year another De Morgan tile took £6000 demonstrating the market remains strong.

Read more about the topic in Antiques Trade Gazette’s collecting guide on tiles. 

View and bid for a range of tiles offered on thesaleroom.com.