User:Dresslerkiln/Carlo Manzoni

Minerva Art Ware Ceramics.
By Robert Prescott-Walker.©. Published Antique Collectors Club Journal. Vol.41. No.9. March 2007. Pg. 26-31.

“Started on the 1st July, 1895, in Hanley, Staffordshire, with a capital of forty pounds sterling. On the 12th July I saw the first results of my work. It consists of ten small vases in various shapes. The label on the vases has my name on it and the year of production. The height of the vases varies from 12 to 15 centimetres. The result is very satisfying. G.C. Manzoni.” (Notebook entitled 'Leisure Hours' Manzoni family archive.)

This was how Giovanni Carlo Valentino Manzoni noted in his journal the beginning of the Minerva Art Ware Manufacturers, which he had established at the Granville Pottery, 141 Bryan Street, Hanley. He leased part of the building until June 1897 when the pottery was taken over by its workers, who later moved to the Coleorton Pottery, in Lount, near Ashby de la Zouch, Leicestershire.

The discovery of a large privately held collection of documents, together with a significant collection of Minerva Ware, have thrown new light on Manzoni’s unheralded contribution to the Della Robbia Pottery (with which he is more usually associated) as well as revealing much about his overall artistic career, including the Minerva art pottery and his marble, stone and wood carving works from 1906 to his death in 1910, as well as his personal life. That Manzoni joined Harold Rathbone and Conrad Dressler, founders of the Della Robbia Pottery in December 1893, within a few months of its establishment, and left in June 1895, before returning in June 1898, is one of the many interesting facts that has never been exposed. The extent of Manzoni’s exact involvement at Della Robbia has been somewhat mysterious, with less than a handful of marked works recorded. Add to that the very similar wares he produced at the Granville Pottery, then mix in some old and misleading misconceptions that the Granville wares were products of the Della Robbia Pottery, or some place called Coleorton, (as some wares are so marked) and one can see the confusing results of all these “Chinese whispers”. This is where the problems of the attribution and identification of his work seem to start. When it comes attributing the ware Manzoni made at the Minerva Art pottery I have bought and seen pieces marked variously as Italian, Della Robbia, Cantagalli, Spanish and Majolica, and, more often than not, entirely unattributed.

Trained as a sculptor, Carlo Manzoni, having studied in Turin between 1875 and 1884, travelled Europe and America looking for the right audience for his work before settling in London in 1885, putting down roots in England, where he lived with Emma Rodgers, dressmaker, at 243 King’s Road. In 1889 when Manzoni exhibited ‘A vase in hand modelled terra cotta’ at the second Arts and Crafts exhibition, his address was given as 38 Glebe Place, Chelsea. Conrad Dressler was living directly opposite at 40 Glebe Place and therefore it seems some form of relationship developed between the two sculptors. It was also during this period that Manzoni apparently met William De Morgan and may well have acted as a translator, helping to create a better understanding between De Morgan and the Cantagalli representative Farini. Manzoni certainly knew Farini, as a jug with both of their monograms has been recorded.

Family problems and the offer of work at the Della Robbia Pottery saw the Manzoni family move to Birkenhead in May 1894. The early years surrounding the establishment of Della Robbia turned out to be fraught with problems both on the business side, including problematic raw materials, a lack of skills in preparation and firing of the wares, as well as the personal issues between the three main protagonists, presumably associated with poor artistic direction, lack of orders and failures in the making. It was Manzoni who was the first to leave or (perhaps escape) from the confines of the Della Robbia Pottery, in June 1895.

HANLEY. From several dated sketches we know that the Manzoni family moved to Stoke-on-Trent in June 1895. In a remarkably short period of time Manzoni not only established a place to live but found suitable premises and about half a dozen staff to start his own commercial pottery venture, the Minerva Art Ware manufacturers. The pottery, in 141 Bryan Street Hanley, was established in part of the Granville Pottery, then owned by Henry Mills, and other businesses apparently had the same address during the same period. Manzoni and his workers must have kept up a steady pace of production since an advert soon appeared showing numerous pieces of ware.

MINERVA. One of the obvious differences between Minerva Ware and Della Robbia is that Manzoni was more interested in producing a good product, using skilled labour along with tried and tested raw materials. Perhaps it was the kiln failures and frustration at the lack of skills concerning clay preparation, throwing, colour and glaze mixing, firing, etc, etc, at Della Robbia that helped Manzoni make his decision to leave. Many early Minerva wares were made of saggar marl, producing a very pale body, or an earthenware body with plenty of quartz and iron particles, producing a very dark body, both of which were very reliable in the firing. Minerva wares often have a coloured slip ground, forming the basis for the scrafitto work, and subsequent colouring. The glaze is more consistent than Della Robbia and not usually prone to flaking, the early wares often having a slightly thinner glaze, compared to the more viscous and brilliant glazes used in later wares. It is still difficult to square the simplicity or naïve charm of some vases being produced in 1897/8 when compared to the wonderfully lavish and professional decoration seen on some of the large wall plaques, large vases and two handled jardinières produced in 1896. Perhaps commercial pressures started to come into play. It seems quite likely that the lavish painted wares were carried out by Manzoni while some of the simpler pieces were produced by the workers; the latter wares often bear their initials. Manzoni also experimented with lustre glazes but apparently not for very long.

The shapes of the wares Manzoni produced are largely simple, produced for function of a decorative surface and are often without handles, with only the very large jardinieres having handles. Compared to Della Robbia ware the decoration on Manzoni’s pieces is more consistent, with vertical foliate panels as the staple decorative feature, between narrow bands, almost always with at least a decorative band on the neck or lip, a few pieces having broader horizontal bands of decoration. Figurative decoration is only seen on large plaques, vases and jardinières.

MARKS. Some of the first pieces or trials were marked directly into the body with the initials CM surrounded by the date, 1895, and a bottle kiln outline with a number, the latter probably indicating the number of the kiln firing. It apparently didn’t take long for Manzoni to realise that to incise the mark through slip made it stand out better. The standard or most commonly seen mark was soon developed with the words ‘Hands Drawing & Painting’, surrounding the CM monogram outside of which was the date, the markings being incised into a thin slip coating covering the centre of the base. Some variations of the mark have a letter ‘C’ hanging from the middle of the letter ‘M’ and the outer script underwent some grammatical changes, becoming ‘Hand Drawn & Painted’ and “Hand Drawn & Painting.” Linguistic problems seem quite common in Minerva marks. Hand painted marks of a dove and/or an olive branch with a date and initials seem to indicate the work of Manzoni. There are two sketchbooks in the private family archive from this period with detailed drawings of surface pattern designs, and shapes that were used at the Minerva Art Ware pottery. Many of the sketches are coded with numbers to indicate colours to be used and shapes. The reverse of the general photograph of the ware in the family archive has the shape numbers indicated in rows. Many of the wares the collector will come across have at least two numeric references, and in addition many have monograms for either the painter/paintress. One of the most intriguing aspects of the mark are the initials for the workers, many of which: J.W., S.F., H.J.F. and F, can be seen right the way through to end of the pottery at Coleorton in 1898/9. The names of these potters have not survived. A note of warning: There are wares produced by contemporary art potteries with a painted or incised mark with an outline of a Swan or the word ‘Swan’ with the initials NHL. These are not Manzoni or Della Robbia. Nor are wares bearing the word ‘Salop’ or ‘Salopian’.

COLEORTON. The Minerva Art Ware pottery appears to have been a successful commercial venture otherwise there would have been little reason for those involved to carry on the venture, after Manzoni left in 1897, later moving to a new location presumably in an attempt to keep costs down. A notice appeared in the main trade magazine, the Pottery Gazette, in 1898. Miscellaneous section, announcing the move to Lount, near Ashby-de-la-Zouch. “The business of Messrs Manzoni & Co, Hanley (Minerva Art Ware Manufacturers) has been transferred to Coleorton Pottery, Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Leicestershire. All future communications and orders to be sent to Coleorton – Signed: Manzoni & Co.” (Notebook entitled 'Leisure Hours' Manzoni family archive.) This pottery was a brick and sanitary ware manufacturers. The workers were allowed by Manzoni to continue production using his shapes and designs, the only apparent change in the product being the words ‘Coleorton Pottery’ and/or ‘Manzoni & Co' being added to the mark. On occasion the words ‘After an original design by G. C. Manzoni’ also appear. The body used was different, becoming denser and slightly darker, suggesting that the clays, along with the firing conditions, had changed. There are many pieces, however, made in Coleorton between 1897 and 1899, which when put side by side with pieces made at Hanley could well have been fired in the same kiln.

Perhaps something approaching the true reason Manzoni established his own pottery can be seen in a reference he wrote in his journal. “On the 10th June 1897 I set off again for London after having spent 22 months in Hanley, practising the trade of artistic vase designer (or Ceramist) as a freelance having my own business at Granville Pottery, Bryan Street (Hanley). I sold the business for 22 1/2 pounds sterling.” (Notebook entitled 'Leisure Hours' Manzoni family archive.) The implication being that the venture was set up with the idea of putting into practice ideas that Manzoni had developed during his initial work at the Della Robbia Pottery, ideas or experiments that he had been unable to develop whilst he was there, perhaps due to much of his time being taken up working on large architectural panels.

After almost four years of continuous production, two at the Granville Pottery (the first experimental trials emerging twelve days after Manzoni started the venture) followed by at least another twenty-two months further production at the Coleorton Pottery, in Lount, Derbyshire, the output of Manzoni-designed art pottery although not as long lived as some of his contemporaries there are still plenty of examples to be found in far-flung parts of the country. Part of the problem in finding such pieces seems to be the wide variety of marks used and the confusion caused by not only the similarities to Della Robbia ware but also the erroneous dates given or suggested for Manzoni’s work at the Birkenhead pottery. The illustrations of Manzoni’s Minerva Art Ware in the only significant published work on the Della Robbia Pottery, and the inclusion of the standard Minerva ware mark in that book has, unintentionally, only added to the confusion.

Following his experience running his own pottery, Manzoni, was able to return to Della Robbia in June 1898 with a much greater understanding of what was entailed in all aspects of the design and production of decorative and utilitarian domestic pottery. Fellow workers interviewed many years later noted that a great deal of the success of the Della Robbia pottery was due to Manzoni. By ‘success’ I take that to mean the artistic development and happiness of the workers along with the day-to-day running of the pottery. The story of Manzoni and his real contribution at the Della Robbia Pottery is however for another article.