David Leach, Lowerdown Pottery

I had (note tense) a small coffee cup from the Leach pottery which I used for a number of years for my espressos a.m., but it recently became a victim of a sudden change to a lower energy level, so I have been looking for a replacement, and, lo!!!!



This is a tea cup which will fit under my DeLonghi coffee maker, so WIN WIN I reckon. It is a bit posher than the old one though so extra care will be called for while increasing MY energy levels.

Definitely a bit special.

Howdy Pardners

Would anyone know anything about this Leach Jug. About 5.75 inches high with those distinctive lightening bolt unglazed lines. There's a small possibility that there should be a lid as although there is no defined ring to hold it there is a swell on the walls which could have been used though, to my mind that's just a fluid control aspect for pouring. Gloss glazed all the way down the inside also.

Sorry I can't seem to edit to rotate images here and coming straight off of the camera.

Cheers

Little cream jug by David Leach

I have a David Leach Jam Pot but cannot identify the Pattern/Range. Can anyone help please?

Thank you in advance

Definitely the Lowerdown potter of David Leach. with the D+. But that David Leach mark looks very unusual. Never seen one like that before.

I guess he lost his stamp that day

I suspect it could possibly have been thrown by someone other than David or maybe him. Then after David painted it he felt pleased with the outcome and decided to painted his personal mark on it. By then the body would have been too dry to use his personal seal.

I remember once visiting him and buying an exceptionally nice small pot with only the Lowerdown mark on it and him remarking that he had made it and decorated it and regretted not putting his personal mark on it.............. as he could then have charged me more!

The style influence does remind one of the Bernard Leach Jam pots just marked with a painted BL and the impressed St Ives mark. This one on pinterest for instance.https://it.pinterest.com/pin/104638391312047944/

Thank you for all your comments. I had seen the Jam Pot on Pinterest which is similar but not quite the right shape. There is a similar shaped pot by Bernard Leach - Pagoda - but it is not a Jam Pot!

Using the shape and making something bigger or smaller is all part of the potting experience. I know that in the past I had lidded pot by Jeremy (David's son) who had used the same shaped lid.

Do we have any personal seal marks from David while he was at St Ives?

slopingsteve wrote:Do we have any personal seal marks from David while he was at St Ives?

There are some in the book but the one of this pot isn't included. However, the logic because this is a Standard Ware shape and glaze is that he is one of only a few people who would be allowed to do this.

As a collector, that mark would make me wary.

It's an underglaze mark, so it's fine in my opinion, though DL may have only been the decorator, but this is no different from many of BL's later pots.

Stoneware Oil bottle. Is this just a piece of standard ware?

At Lowerdown David didn't have a complete range of Standard Ware per se and he would have made the same items with both his personal seal, as seen here, and the Lowerdown Cross seal. He wasn't the only person making items with the Lowerdown Cross seal but, having spoken to him about this, he did make a considerable amount. The main reason was to give a range of prices when people visited the pottery.

As this has his personal seal, it means that you are able to say that he made it and hence the price would be higher when originally bought than if it had the Lowerdown Cross seal and obviously there would continue to be a price difference today.

Thanks as always SP for clearing up that "grey" area I had always wondered about.

Would not be at all surprised if these were made for specific market. David Canter of Cranks fame was a leading light in the CPA, and also ran the Cranks restaurant chain. The long running CPA shop in Marshall street was bang next to a Cranks restaurant.
Cranks opened a restaurant at Dartington in the early 70's, and they used a lot of studio pottery in their plates and dinner ware. Winchcombe in particular. At the same time, the Craft shop at Dartington sold a lot of studio pottery and was a specific outlet for David Leach. Indeed, he only lived a few miles away.

Not come across one of these storage jars before. I wonder when it dates from

His 'Black' period...

Looks like David Leach to me, but no personal mark that I can see. The spout is broken but I still love it.

It’s Lowerdown standardware but David Leach wasn’t the only potter so without a personal stamp it’s not possible to attribute it to him personally

David did much of the Standard Ware stuff in the later years (after Tim Andrews) and intentionally did not put his own mark on it so that he had things at different prices in his showroom. We use a couple of bowls everyday with the Lowerdown mark only and we know that David made them as he told us when he sold them to us. However, they were made for use and not to be collected and attributing any of these piece to him seems a little unfair to the potter to my mind. However, I think it fair to say that the decoration on this teapot is too clumsy for it be David's.

A 9in high stoneware vase, found today.