THE POTTERY - A Dragon for Halloween

A fine and fanciful piece by Danish ceramic specialists P. Ipsens Enke.

I like the idea of collecting china and pottery which has a seasonal connection. I keep it in a bookcase bureau like a Cabinet of Curiosities and bring out items to display according to the occasion. I love dragons and this one is perfect for October and Halloween. I also think he has a bat like appearance.

I'm not sure for what use this piece was intended. Perhaps just decorative. But it could display jewellery, calling cards or Halloween sweets.

Danish, Circa 1904 P. Ipsens Enke Ceramic Dragon signed by sculptor Axel Jensen.

4 inches high, diameter 13 inches.

He is wonderfully detailed. From his beautiful head and claws right down to his fantastic tail which curls round perfectly.


He is for sale through the New York dealer Lost City Arts. HERE: 

P. Ipsens Enke, the pottery where he was produced was established in Denmark by Bornhom born potter Rasmus Peter Ipsen in 1843 when he was just 28 years old. As a child of 13 he had worked a gruelling job at a brickyard at which he carried 4000 bricks every day. He then worked for a joiner where he put in very long hours and became so unwell that he had to quit. This early toil may have been what later curtailed his life. It was lucky that a friend from school found him a trainee position at The Royal Copenhagen where he learned to throw and could use his vision for form and colours. P. Ipsens pottery produced the work of many Danish artists of that time and was successful enough for him to be able to build a new larger pottery near Copenhagen in 1847. Following his early death at the age of 45 his wife Lovise Christine Ipsen carried on the business until 1865 (Enke means 'widow') when his eldest son  Bertel Ipsen , also a potter took over management of the pottery.
P. Ipsens Enke closed in 1955.

        Read more about Peter Ipsen on Ceramics Today   

  

 

 

Landscape by Axel P Jensen

 

I think that this Dragon piece must be a rare one as the sculptor Axel Peder Jenson (1885–1972) was a modernist painter known mainly for his landscapes although in his early days he completed a number of portraits. The son of a farmer he had a deep love for the countryside fields which he ploughed and painted so well. He is remembered for his wonderful colours and brushstrokes.

 

I especially like that it is said that he had a special feel for the seasons painting both Summer and the cold wet Autumns. This makes me think that perhaps when he created this Dragon he was thinking of Autumn.

 

 Later he also designed a set of airmail stamps for Denmark, which you can see HERE:

 And you can read about him on his Wiki page  HERE:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ENCHANTED CHILDHOOD ~ Crown Staffordshire 'Pixie' Bowl

Crown Staffordshire 'Pixies' Cereal/fruit bowl circa 1906

Taken just before the demolition of the Minerva Works

Photo: Aug 2001
website origin

When you live in a tiny cottage what you collect must be small, and it is especially wonderful when you find items which combine some of your 'Objects of Desire' into one. This little bowl which is over a hundred years old has delightfully done just that.  

This is a rare Crown Staffordshire 'Pixies' Cereal/fruit bowl circa 1906, beautifully hand painted and very fine china. Yes, it is cracked, but at it's age a little imperfection is to be expected. We love it.

We do not know who the artist was, (but would love to). They make it looks effortless, and it probably was for them. Some people have the gift of magical creatures and beings appearing at a wave of their hand.

Over the years we have amassed a lot of collections.  Dragons and all things wearing pointy hats being just two of them. Not to mention Mushrooms, Butterflies and Rabbits.

We are supposed to source items to sell, but sometimes they just belong in our cottage.

Gnome with Dragon Hatchling

And this ..... is a gentleman wearing a nicely pointy red hat with a Dragon hatchling. Why?  No idea, but we do like them a lot. It has a mark which says 1994 DHM and it is china not resin. As you can see, they are very happy together. If anyone might know anything more about them please tell us!

Meanwhile all of the Pixies, Dragons and Pointy Hatted ones are dwelling happily ever after in our cavernous display case in a corner.

ENCHANTED ~ Dragon Cottages

A cottage at Haslemere, Surrey Helen Allingham

Like many parts of Britain the area of Wiltshire we live in is graced with old cottages both thatched and red brick tiled. When I was a child I decided that the tiles were from dragons or sea serpents and I named the cottages adorned with them 'dragon cottages' because they looked as if they had scales. Children's minds are funny things!

A Green Dragon and his scales

Tiles hung on a side of a building

This one even has a dragon ridge on it's roof!

As I grew up elsewhere I did not set eyes upon an English dragon cottage save in books and magazines until I landed upon this sceptred isle in the 70s.

Magical Cotchford Farm

The first that I saw in person were in Sussex. I had to make pilgrimages to many favourite authors homes, and to historic houses and gardens. Many of them were hung with red clay tiles. I was in Heaven, but sadly in those days only photographers carried decent cameras and so I have just slightly blurry photo memories of those early halycon times in the English countryside I loved so much.

Cotchford Farm was dear to my heart for two reasons, it had been the home of Winnie The Pooh author A.A. Milne where he wrote the Pooh stories for his young son Christopher Robin and later in the 60s the last home of the very talented but ill fated boy-child, Rolling Stone Brian Jones.  There are statues of the Winnie The Pooh characters in the garden and more than a slight air of sorrow pervades it, but the farm house is so pretty.

Christopher Robin and Pooh 1925 at Cotchford Farm

Another favourite childhood author of mine was Rudyard Kipling. I loved that he adored cats and his poem The Cat Who Walked Alone is still a favourite of mine and Mrs Black's. I had to visit his house, and was delighted to find that it too was hung with clay tiles!

Bateman's home of Rudyard Kipling

Bateman's is the wonderful Jacobean manor where poet Rudyard Kipling lived from 1902-1936. It is in Burwash, Etchingham, East Sussex and is open to the public via The National Trust.

Bateman's National Trust

I never tire of looking for buildings hung with red tiles be they humble or grand and now I take photographs. The workers cottages we live in have a few dragon scales and our particular cottage has quite a few Dragons inside and out as we collect them.

I love the elaborate tile decoration which you find all over Britain on cottages, grand houses and shops. 

This is the magnificent Merchant's House, Marlborough, Wiltshire

Courtyards and alleys in Marlborough

This building is cheating a little as strictly speaking these are not tile hung, but built into the fabric of this wonderful old bulding at Kingsclere. I can still imagine them as Dragon scales, for quite a special Dragon. It's a most loved place of mine. The initials on it are of one of the greatest ever racehorse trainers John Porter (2 March 1838 – 21 February 1922) who built Kingsclere on the Hampshire Downs and also founded Newbury Racecourse in Berkshire. During his career he trained racehorses for royalty and his horses won twenty three British Classic races including the Epsom Derby seven times. Some of his most famous horses include the Triple Crown winners  Ormonde (1886), Common (1891), and Flying Fox (1899).  You can read more about him and Kingsclere here: National Racing Museum.

While I was growing up in America I collected books about England, especially those with illustrations of country cottages inclduing my 'Dragon Cottages'. I knew I'd live here one day and it kept my dream alive to look at them.

One of my favourite artists was Helen Allingham,  (26 September 1848 – 28 September 1926)  the  English watercolourist and illustrator of the victorian era. I know her view of England is a romantic one, but that is the point isn't it? I love the way her paintings are so soft, almost always include animals and birds and do have a dreamy quality to them.

A cottage at Shere, c.1875

Where I grew up a few people had prairie style gardens, but not many. It was thought in those days that your garden, or 'yard' as Americans call them, should be a tidy place. My Great Grandmother was a magical woman. Very self sufficient, a little mysterious and set in the old ways. She had a tiny cottage a cat and a cottage garden. I still remember her sweeping her dirt path to keep it free of weeds and less dusty.



Kentish Garden, Helen Allingham

Although her cottage was in a rural backwater of Northern California she may have been the one who first set me dreaming of the world beyond, of castles and kings and dragon cottages.