Topic: A little knowledge... bull figure

[Lustrousstone]

I knew joining this board was a bad idea. I staggered home today, sorry we staggered to the car, with three bags of stuff I don't need because I can't move for "stock" and only one bit of it glass.

Anyway the glaze on this fella caught my eye. Cheap Spanish or what? He's about 7 inches long

[Sue C]

Hi Christine, it look's a little like Fosters pottery.

[Pete]

I would never have guessed Fosters but given your record on my pieces Sue I for one have to take you seriously sooo I searched on fleabay and found this .....
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/FOSTERS-STUDIO-POTTERY-BLUE-SUGAR-BOWL_W0QQitemZ260104009906
which at least shows that they did do blue foam. I'd never seen it before. Sue obviously has.
PS I love this bull - very evocative.

[Sue C]

Hi Pete, I did say a little like Fosters, maybe there is a Spanish pottery who used the same kind of glaze or similar, i have seen Fosters blue foam before, but i have to say that the Fosters glaze seem's more, eeeerm spaced out, if you know what i mean?.

[Lustrousstone]

I never got back to this.  Thanks Sue, don't think its Foster though but have discovered who made that brown and white stuff I don't like  and this useful article on the Lotus Pottery

[Pete]

It's always nice to know who made it but sometimes a piece can be judged on just it's own merits and for me this is one of those pieces. I think it's excellent.
I do have a bull ...a rather large modernist style one but I packed it in with some glass and it came out with a broken ear ...I felt so angry with myself for not being more careful and for mixing glass with pottery. I re-packed it with the ear with it's own box which is what I should have done in the first place but I have never looked at it since. It wasn't a cheap piece. That was about 5 years ago and I still fell bad about it. I guess its mendable but I'm so fussy about things being properly mended that I haven't even tried.
Pete

[josordoni]

I am sure I have seen that glaze before.... it is sort of smooth satin isn't it?  quite drippy and moulded?  I have Celtic come to mind, but I don't think it is that...

[Tigerchips]

I am sure I have seen that glaze before.... it is sort of smooth satin isn't it?  quite drippy and moulded?  I have Celtic come to mind, but I don't think it is that...

Similar to Dumler & Breiden?
http://www.pips-trip.co.uk/sold-items/sold-ceramics-1/showitem-WESTGERDBLIDDED.aspx

[josordoni]

No the German glazes are much shinier than I am thinking...I am going to have a wander around the Studio Potter site and see if I can find anything similar.

[Lustrousstone]

Yes, he's satiny. And where the white clay shows has been painted afterwards with sort of tea-coloured stuff to hide the white - but by the 'factory'

[josordoni]

Or it is possible that he was meant to be painted there , and the glaze slipped away from some areas, leaving some white and some with the brown paint.

[Lustrousstone]

The tea colour is round and under his hooves, there's also a bit on one horn where the glaze has slipped

[josordoni]

Ah yes, that will be residual paint - I presume the bottom edge of this hooves and the underside are unglazed as usual? 

The potter I was thinking of was Lisa Larson at Gustavsberg, or possibly Stanislav Reychan - there is a Reychan cat here http://www.studiopottery.com/cgi-bin/pp.cgi?item=5553

But I can't find that either did a bull....

[Lustrousstone]

Thanks for looking Lynne