Featured Ceramics that tell a story...

I'm a sucker for ceramics that tell a story.

Blaenavon is an old industrial site in South Wales that is now a World Heritage Site (see wiki for Blaenavon Ironworks) and you can still go down Big Pit coal mine which is now a museum.

The Blaenavon Workmen's Hall and Institute was built in 1895 and was paid for from voluntary pay deductions from miners and ironworkers. We recently sold this mug, from 1912, from which it is clear that the Institute was part financed with debt, the mug commemorating the date when the Institute became debt free. And it is still open serving the community.

 

Thanks for posting !! I also love a story !

 

Love it as well!
Thanks for sharing.
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Here is my contribution;
Found it yesterday at a car boot sale .
A small china scale with logo of the Grand Hotel Weber.
That hotel was build in 1901 by a German immigrant (since 1887 in Antwerp) named Nicolas Weber.
Little is know about that person, some say he build it with his savings when working in the previous building, that was a hotel as well. Other say he was rich when coming to Antwerp.
Never the less he builded a magnificent hotel, that needed to be destroyed after the V boms raid on Antwerp at the end of the second world war.
Four big brons statues(who stood on the rooftop) were recently sold by a auction house over here, for big money.
They reprensented the four continents.
I love family crests, china with logo's and when related to my home town; I treasure them!
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I'm guessing the scale was used in the kitchen or patisserie part of the hotel?

Briefly back to Blaenavon and, to show that Art Deco even reached the Valleys of South Wales, here's a jubilee cup and saucer celebrating the formation of Blaenavon Industrial & Provident Society in 1889

 

Great as well!
I hope I didn't interupted your post!!??

 

No that's fine, great to see other examples!

 

Good idea for a discussion thread, rhiwfield. It would be fun to see more posts here.

 

Here is a big pot (not realy ceramic!!)that probably was sold to retailers in order to fill small pots for theyre customers.
It comes from suburbs of Antwerp and just found out (by coincidence) that it must have been from one of the oldest vinegar breweries of Belgium.

 

Keep posting. I love this stuff.

 

I have got a small collection of military china having the regimental crest on them.
I'll start with the oldest (end 19 th century) and greatest one of all.
A bowl of the 1 st Belgian lancers, together with a plate of the fourth lancers (couldn't find a other pic!)

 

Another military ceramic that tells a (sad!)story, is this handpaited German lancers beermug.
I just recently found out that the hole at the bottom was deliberated made by the (former!) owner's brothers in arms! In order to "ritual cripple" the mug so no other person would drink out of it after the death(when KIA) of the owner.....
The hole also has the triangular shape of the lance top.

 

Fascinating stuff, and carrying on a long tradition from antiquity.

 

One day in April 1915 a Zeppelin came to Maldon, dropped 24 bombs and killed a hen!
Sadly, the handle to this Goss crested china Zeppelin bomb is broken.

 

Intresting! Never knew how a such a bomb might look like!
Here are parts of a shot down zepplin I used to own (it might have been that one who came back from Maldon...);

 

I don't know if this counts or not, as it is a copy of an existing memorial:





The statue commemorates an interesting incident in 1904 when Russian warships fired on a number of harmless English fishing trawlers believing them to be Japanese torpedo boats. It was the time of the Russo-Japanese war and the Russian sailors were feeling more than a little nervous, there being rumors of Japanese torpedo boats in the North Sea. Three British fishermen died and even a couple of Russians who got caught in crossfire. This is known as the Dogger Bank Incident, which almost led to an English-Russian war. More detailed information can be found online.

 

I sure counts to me!
I must have past that memorial a dozen of times, but never payed any attention to it!
Thanks for sharing and pointing it out.
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This piece is dependent on its label for any historical connection.



The foil label is largely unreadable, but there’s enough to be interesting. The first line reads “Official Opening”. The second line used to read Tasu B.C. Development, but only fragments of those first letters remain. “Wesfrob Mine” can be read and, below that, “June”. I believe this refers to the opening of a mine on the south side of Tasu Sound and the west coast of Moresby Island, in the Queen Charlotte Islands of British Columbia. The mine was opened in June 1967 (which would be the date of this ashtray). It closed in 1983. Ore in that locality had been known to the Haida people of the region since the late 1700s, which explains why Haida imagery was used for this piece. Wesfrob was a division of Falconbridge Nickel Mines and this development produced gold, silver, copper, and iron from both open pits and, later, underground mines.

 

What's that made of.......I don't know Boma to make ceramics....but maybe back then..???

 

I sold that on eBay long ago. The black was Boma's usual composite. I think the bowl of the ashtray was a glass insert. Sorry if it's not properly a ceramic.