Minton
Encyclopedia
Minton's Ltd, was a major ceramic
s manufacturing company, originated with Thomas Minton
(1765-1836) the founder of "Thomas Minton and Sons", who established his pottery
factory in Stoke-upon-Trent
, Staffordshire
, England
, in 1793, producing earthenware
and from 1798 bone china
.
. From c1800 production included fine ornamental chinaware. China production ceased c1816, recommencing c1822.
On his death, Minton was succeeded by his son Herbert Minton (1793-1858) who developed new production techniques and took the business into new fields, notably including decorative encaustic tile
making, through his association with leading architects and designers including Augustus Pugin
and, it is said, Prince Albert.
Minton entered into partnership with Michael Hollins in 1845 and formed the tile making firm of Minton Hollins & Co., which was at the forefront of a large newly developing market as suppliers of durable decorative finishes for walls and floors in churches, public buildings, grand palaces and simple domestic houses. The firm exhibited widely at trade exhibitions throughout the world and examples of its exhibition displays are held at the Smithsonian Institution
in Washington, D.C.
where the company gained many prestigious contracts including tiled flooring for the United States Capitol
.
Hard white unglazed "statuary porcelain", later called Parian ware due to its resemblance to Parian marble
, was first introduced by Spode
in the 1840s. It was further developed by Minton who employed John Bell, Hiram Powers
and other famous sculptors to produce figures for reproduction.
In 1849 Minton engaged a young French ceramic artist Léon Arnoux as art director and he remained with the Minton Company until 1892. This and other enterprising appointments enabled the company greatly to widen its product ranges, one of the first innovations being the very colourful and highly successful Majolica
ware launched at The Great Exhibition
of 1851.
The Franco-Prussian War
of 1870 gave Arnoux the opportunity to recruit the modeller Marc-Louis Solon
who had developed the technique of pâte-sur-pâte
at Sèvres
and brought it with him to Minton. In this process the design is built up in relief with layers of liquid slip, with each layer being allowed to dry before the next is applied. There was great demand for Solon's plaques and vases, featuring maidens and cherubs, and Minton assigned him apprentices to help the firm become the unrivaled leader in this field.
Others introduced to Minton by Arnoux included the sculptor Albert-Ernest Carrier-Belleuse
and the painter Antoine Boullemier.
On his death Herbert Minton was succeeded by his equally dynamic nephew Colin Minton Campbell who took the company into a highly successful exploration of Chinese cloisonné enamels, Japanese lacquer and Turkish pottery. In 1870 Mintons opened an art pottery studio in Kensington, London directed by W.S. Coleman and encouraged both amateur and professional artists to become involved in pottery decoration and design. When the studio was destroyed by fire in 1875, it was not rebuilt.
From the mid-1890s onwards, Minton's made major contributions to Art Nouveau
ceramics with a fine range of slip-trailed
majolica
ware, many designed by Marc-Louis Solon's son Leon Solon and his colleague John Wadsworth. Leon Solon was hired by Minton's after his work was published in the hugely influential design magazine The Studio and he worked for the company from 1895-1905, including a brief stint as Art Director. Solon's early designs for Minton's were strongly influenced by the Viennese Secessionist art movement, founded by Gustav Klimt
and others, and so became known as Secessionist ware.
The Secessionist range covered both practical and ornamental wares including cheese dishes, plates, teapots, jugs and comports, vases and large jardinières. The shapes of ornamental vases included inverted trumpets, elongated cylinders and exaggerated bottle forms, although tableware shapes were conventional. Early Successionist patterns featured realistic renderings of natural motifs—flowers, birds and human figures—but under the combined influence of Solon and Wadsworth, these became increasingly exaggerated and stylised, with the characteristic convoluted plant forms and floral motifs reaching a peak of extravagance around the turn of the 20th century.
The Minton factory in the centre of Stoke was rebuilt and modernised after the Second World War by the then Managing Director, J. E. Hartill,a great-great-great grandson of Thomas Minton. The tableware
division was always the mainstay of Minton's fortunes and the post-1950 rationalisation of the British pottery industry took Mintons into a merger with Royal Doulton
Tableware Ltd. By the 1980s Mintons was only producing a few different shapes but still employed highly skilled decorators. The factory, including office accommodation and a Minton Museum, was recently demolished as part of rationalisation within the Royal Doulton group. Specialized bone china
tableware continues to be produced by Royal Doulton under the Minton name.
The Victorian building which used to be the Minton Hollins tileworks is on a separate site from the former Minton pottery. It was threatened with demolition in the 1980s but was listed and has been preserved.
Ceramic
A ceramic is an inorganic, nonmetallic solid prepared by the action of heat and subsequent cooling. Ceramic materials may have a crystalline or partly crystalline structure, or may be amorphous...
s manufacturing company, originated with Thomas Minton
Thomas Minton
Thomas Minton was an English potter. He founded Thomas Minton & Sons in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, which grew into a major ceramic manufacturing company with an international reputation....
(1765-1836) the founder of "Thomas Minton and Sons", who established his pottery
Pottery
Pottery is the material from which the potteryware is made, of which major types include earthenware, stoneware and porcelain. The place where such wares are made is also called a pottery . Pottery also refers to the art or craft of the potter or the manufacture of pottery...
factory in Stoke-upon-Trent
Stoke-upon-Trent
Stoke-upon-Trent, commonly called Stoke or Stoke town, is a component town of the city of Stoke-on-Trent, in the ceremonial county of Staffordshire, England....
, Staffordshire
Staffordshire
Staffordshire is a landlocked county in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes, the county is a NUTS 3 region and is one of four counties or unitary districts that comprise the "Shropshire and Staffordshire" NUTS 2 region. Part of the National Forest lies within its borders...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, in 1793, producing earthenware
Earthenware
Earthenware is a common ceramic material, which is used extensively for pottery tableware and decorative objects.-Types of earthenware:Although body formulations vary between countries and even between individual makers, a generic composition is 25% ball clay, 28% kaolin, 32% quartz, and 15%...
and from 1798 bone china
Bone china
Bone china is a type of soft-paste porcelain that is composed of bone ash, feldspathic material and kaolin. It has been defined as ware with a translucent body containing a minimum of 30% of phosphate derived from animal bone and calculated calcium phosphate...
.
History
Minton's early products were mostly standard domestic tableware in blue transfer printed or painted earthenware, including the ever popular Willow patternWillow pattern
The Willow pattern, more commonly known as Blue Willow, is a distinctive and elaborate pattern used on ceramic kitchen/housewares. The pattern was designed by Thomas Minton around 1790 and has been in use for over 200 years. Other references give alternative origins, such as Thomas Turner of...
. From c1800 production included fine ornamental chinaware. China production ceased c1816, recommencing c1822.
On his death, Minton was succeeded by his son Herbert Minton (1793-1858) who developed new production techniques and took the business into new fields, notably including decorative encaustic tile
Encaustic tile
Encaustic tiles are ceramic tiles in which the pattern or figure on the surface is not a product of the glaze but of different colors of clay. They are usually of two colors but a tile may be composed of as many as six. The pattern is inlaid into the body of the tile, so that the design remains as...
making, through his association with leading architects and designers including Augustus Pugin
Augustus Pugin
Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin was an English architect, designer, and theorist of design, now best remembered for his work in the Gothic Revival style, particularly churches and the Palace of Westminster. Pugin was the father of E. W...
and, it is said, Prince Albert.
Minton entered into partnership with Michael Hollins in 1845 and formed the tile making firm of Minton Hollins & Co., which was at the forefront of a large newly developing market as suppliers of durable decorative finishes for walls and floors in churches, public buildings, grand palaces and simple domestic houses. The firm exhibited widely at trade exhibitions throughout the world and examples of its exhibition displays are held at the Smithsonian Institution
Smithsonian Institution
The Smithsonian Institution is an educational and research institute and associated museum complex, administered and funded by the government of the United States and by funds from its endowment, contributions, and profits from its retail operations, concessions, licensing activities, and magazines...
in Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
where the company gained many prestigious contracts including tiled flooring for the United States Capitol
United States Capitol
The United States Capitol is the meeting place of the United States Congress, the legislature of the federal government of the United States. Located in Washington, D.C., it sits atop Capitol Hill at the eastern end of the National Mall...
.
Hard white unglazed "statuary porcelain", later called Parian ware due to its resemblance to Parian marble
Parian marble
Parian marble is a fine-grained semitranslucent pure-white and entirely flawless marble quarried during the classical era on the Greek island of Paros in the Aegean Sea.It was highly prized by ancient Greeks for making sculptures...
, was first introduced by Spode
Spode
Spode is a well-known English brand of pottery and homewares based in Stoke-on-Trent.- The overview :Spode is a Stoke-on-Trent based pottery company that was founded by Josiah Spode in 1770...
in the 1840s. It was further developed by Minton who employed John Bell, Hiram Powers
Hiram Powers
Hiram Powers was an American neoclassical sculptor.-Biography:The son of a farmer, Powers was born in Woodstock, Vermont, on the July 29, 1805. In 1818 his father moved to Ohio, about six miles from Cincinnati, where the son attended school for about a year, staying meanwhile with his brother, a...
and other famous sculptors to produce figures for reproduction.
In 1849 Minton engaged a young French ceramic artist Léon Arnoux as art director and he remained with the Minton Company until 1892. This and other enterprising appointments enabled the company greatly to widen its product ranges, one of the first innovations being the very colourful and highly successful Majolica
Victorian majolica
Victorian Majolica is earthenware pottery made in 19th century Britain, Europe and the USA with molded surfaces and colorful clear lead glazes.-History:...
ware launched at The Great Exhibition
The Great Exhibition
The Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of all Nations or The Great Exhibition, sometimes referred to as the Crystal Palace Exhibition in reference to the temporary structure in which it was held, was an international exhibition that took place in Hyde Park, London, from 1 May to 15 October...
of 1851.
The Franco-Prussian War
Franco-Prussian War
The Franco-Prussian War or Franco-German War, often referred to in France as the 1870 War was a conflict between the Second French Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia. Prussia was aided by the North German Confederation, of which it was a member, and the South German states of Baden, Württemberg and...
of 1870 gave Arnoux the opportunity to recruit the modeller Marc-Louis Solon
Marc-Louis Solon
Marc-Louis Solon was a French artist who moved to Stoke-on-Trent in 1870. He remained resident in England until his death.He is probably best remembered as a leading exponent of the technique of ceramic decoration called pâte-sur-pâte. His work commanded high prices in the late Victorian period...
who had developed the technique of pâte-sur-pâte
Pâte-sur-pâte
Pâte-sur-pâte is a method of porcelain decoration in which a relief design is created on an unfired, unglazed body by applying successive layers of white slip with a brush...
at Sèvres
Manufacture nationale de Sèvres
The manufacture nationale de Sèvres is a Frit porcelain porcelain tendre factory at Sèvres, France. Formerly a royal, then an imperial factory, the facility is now run by the Ministry of Culture.-Brief history:...
and brought it with him to Minton. In this process the design is built up in relief with layers of liquid slip, with each layer being allowed to dry before the next is applied. There was great demand for Solon's plaques and vases, featuring maidens and cherubs, and Minton assigned him apprentices to help the firm become the unrivaled leader in this field.
Others introduced to Minton by Arnoux included the sculptor Albert-Ernest Carrier-Belleuse
Albert-Ernest Carrier-Belleuse
Albert-Ernest Carrier-Belleuse was a French sculptor and painter.- Life :Carrier-Belleuse was a student of David d'Angers and briefly at the École des Beaux-Arts...
and the painter Antoine Boullemier.
On his death Herbert Minton was succeeded by his equally dynamic nephew Colin Minton Campbell who took the company into a highly successful exploration of Chinese cloisonné enamels, Japanese lacquer and Turkish pottery. In 1870 Mintons opened an art pottery studio in Kensington, London directed by W.S. Coleman and encouraged both amateur and professional artists to become involved in pottery decoration and design. When the studio was destroyed by fire in 1875, it was not rebuilt.
From the mid-1890s onwards, Minton's made major contributions to Art Nouveau
Art Nouveau
Art Nouveau is an international philosophy and style of art, architecture and applied art—especially the decorative arts—that were most popular during 1890–1910. The name "Art Nouveau" is French for "new art"...
ceramics with a fine range of slip-trailed
Tubelining
Tubelining is a technique of ceramic decoration. It involves squeezing a thin line of clay body through a nozzle onto the ware being decorated. An alternative term is "slip trailing"....
majolica
Victorian majolica
Victorian Majolica is earthenware pottery made in 19th century Britain, Europe and the USA with molded surfaces and colorful clear lead glazes.-History:...
ware, many designed by Marc-Louis Solon's son Leon Solon and his colleague John Wadsworth. Leon Solon was hired by Minton's after his work was published in the hugely influential design magazine The Studio and he worked for the company from 1895-1905, including a brief stint as Art Director. Solon's early designs for Minton's were strongly influenced by the Viennese Secessionist art movement, founded by Gustav Klimt
Gustav Klimt
Gustav Klimt was an Austrian Symbolist painter and one of the most prominent members of the Vienna Secession movement. His major works include paintings, murals, sketches, and other art objects...
and others, and so became known as Secessionist ware.
The Secessionist range covered both practical and ornamental wares including cheese dishes, plates, teapots, jugs and comports, vases and large jardinières. The shapes of ornamental vases included inverted trumpets, elongated cylinders and exaggerated bottle forms, although tableware shapes were conventional. Early Successionist patterns featured realistic renderings of natural motifs—flowers, birds and human figures—but under the combined influence of Solon and Wadsworth, these became increasingly exaggerated and stylised, with the characteristic convoluted plant forms and floral motifs reaching a peak of extravagance around the turn of the 20th century.
The Minton factory in the centre of Stoke was rebuilt and modernised after the Second World War by the then Managing Director, J. E. Hartill,a great-great-great grandson of Thomas Minton. The tableware
Tableware
Tableware is the dishes or dishware , dinnerware , or china used for setting a table, serving food, and for dining. Tableware can be meant to include flatware and glassware...
division was always the mainstay of Minton's fortunes and the post-1950 rationalisation of the British pottery industry took Mintons into a merger with Royal Doulton
Royal Doulton
The Royal Doulton Company is an English company producing tableware and collectables, dating to 1815. Operating originally in London, its reputation grew in The Potteries, where it was a latecomer compared to Spode, Wedgwood and Minton...
Tableware Ltd. By the 1980s Mintons was only producing a few different shapes but still employed highly skilled decorators. The factory, including office accommodation and a Minton Museum, was recently demolished as part of rationalisation within the Royal Doulton group. Specialized bone china
Bone china
Bone china is a type of soft-paste porcelain that is composed of bone ash, feldspathic material and kaolin. It has been defined as ware with a translucent body containing a minimum of 30% of phosphate derived from animal bone and calculated calcium phosphate...
tableware continues to be produced by Royal Doulton under the Minton name.
The Victorian building which used to be the Minton Hollins tileworks is on a separate site from the former Minton pottery. It was threatened with demolition in the 1980s but was listed and has been preserved.