Anna Burnside
Head of Sale
Lot 11
A Wrotham slipware tyg by George Richardson, dated 1648
1 December 2025, 13:00 GMT
London, New Bond Street£5,000 - £7,000
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Jim Peake
Head of Department
Fergus Gambon
Director
A Wrotham slipware tyg by George Richardson, dated 1648
Of flared cylindrical form with a turned foot, applied with four double-loop handles embellished with raised cream studs and inset rolls of clay in cream and brown, some twisted as ropes, the body applied with pairs of cream pads, one inscribed 'GR' above a rosette, one with a fleur-de-lys above an angel, one with an angel above a flowerhead, and one inscribed '1648' above an angel, all surrounded by scattered dots in cream slip, 15.7cm high
Footnotes
Provenance
Harland Collection, Sotheby's, 11 February 1931, lot 139
Bonhams, 24 February 1993, lot 85
Longridge Collection, Christie's, 10 June 2010, lot 1163
Literature
Grigsby, Leslie B, 'Some Dated English Drinking Vessels with Trailed Slip-Decoration, 1612-1752', The Magazine Antiques, May 1995, Vol.147, no.6, pl.9
Grigsby, Leslie B, The Longridge Collection of English Slipware and Delftware, Vol.1, 2000, p.114, no.S50
White, Mary, Drinking at the Whites' House, Vol.2, 2021, pp.84-5, fig.b
Tygs of this highly distinctive beaker-shape with multiple handles are the most common vessels associated with Wrotham in Kent. Examples with dates are recorded as early as 1612 through to the 1660s, with an unusually late example dated 1697, but none are known from the 18th century, see A J B Kiddell, 'Wrotham Slipware and the Wrotham Brickyard', ECC Trans, Vol.3, Pt.2, 1954, pp.114-8. Many are initialled and dated, with 'GR' denoting the master potter George Richardson, who was the first potter to inscribe the word 'Wrotham' on a piece of Wrotham slipware, see Kiddell, 1954, pp.108-9 for a biography of this potter. Of the twenty-five or so pieces bearing the initials 'GR', around fifteen are beaker-shaped tygs or puzzle tygs of this form, with other 'GR' shapes including globular tygs and puzzle tygs, jugs and candlesticks. The earliest dated 'GR' piece is a tyg dated 1642 and the latest a jug dated 1683, a few years before Richardson's death in 1687, see Grigsby, 2000, p.114. A very similar 'GR' tyg dated a year later than the present lot, 1649, was sold by Sotheby's New York on 20 January 2006, lot 10.