wall tile

William Frend de Morgan 1839 - 1917

Summary

Public: Eight square plastic-bodied earthenware tiles with hand-transferred underglaze decoration of foliage and yellow cornflowers, and forty-eight smaller border tiles decorated with blue/turquoise monochrome glaze. Private: Fifty-six plastic-bodied earthenware tiles, of which forty-eight are 3" border tiles with a blue/turquoise monochrome glaze and eight are 8" tiles decorated with a hand-transferred underglaze design of green foliage and yellow cornflowers. Two of the tiles show two cornflowers each viewed from the side; two more show one cornflower viewed from the top with two flower buds to the left; four more similar tiles seem to be missing. It is difficult to see how the 3" border tiles can be associated with these 8" central tiles (both the dimensions and the colour schemes appear to be incompatible), and it seems likely that in fact the border tiles belong to a different group (or groups) of 6" tiles. The catalogue card may therefore be in error.