Celtic pottery (Newlyn & Mousehole)

And in the next size up - 10cm tall

do you have any with stickers or base marks?

Sorry, there is nothing at all on the base.
But they are both clearly Mousehole pieces.

So here is a dish I came across at our local flea market. I'm not sure if it is celtic because I've not come across another piece like it but the colours ang glaze look right and it is signed fisher on the bottom.

What do you think and what would you pay for it? The dealer is asking £80

and here is the sig on the base:

I would take a piece from my collection that has those glaze colours so I could compare,if they match then offer £50 and settle on £60

I've compared the colours and they are spot on but I have nothing painted quite like this. Thanks for the advice on value, I'll try him out.

value wise, if the colours are a perfect match it's worth over £80

dantheman wrote:







many thanks to Andrew, a kind ebay seller who donated these great pics of a rare 3 legged Mousehole bowl

this one seems similar

can we see a pic of the whole base?

Well I'm no Celtic collector, but thought I'd add my "2 cents" anyway

I do think it is a more unusual example and the base does look correct to me.

But personally I think this type of decoration (while rarer) would be much less desirable to most people, so value would be more due to the name than the piece itself.

Yeh, I agree that does seem to be an early Mousehole piece.
There do seem to be quite a few random designs from this period - although I've not seen anything quite like this.

Dan - I'm not sure they are really similar. To me, this looks like a large diamond shaped flattish dish, rather than that deep boat type dish (Which is also the only example I've ever seen).

Like Potty I'm not too sure on 'value'. It is rare, but equally not that great a design (to my eyes). So yeh, I'd say £50-£60 would be a fair price. People would ask more but would they get it? Would I pay more? I don't think so, but can't be certain

But a nice addition to a collection if can be got for the right price.

The forum was very useful when this piece turned up on ebay,I asked the seller if there were any partial words left on the worn out label,she told me 'stu' which suggested it was the same as the label pictured above

Nice dish Dan - don't know how I missed it.

Obviously Mousehole, but yeh nice to have remains of a lable to confirm and show exactly which one. You've even still got f & C of middle line.

Here's one I've recently aquired - but it has taken a lot of heavy cleaning, as it had a layer of very hard and discoloured grime on it. This wouldn't just wash off, so I've had to scratch it of with a metal object (wood and plastic wouldn't touch it). Then when virtually all scratched off, it was finally cleaned up with a cheap (not to strong) scouring pad and soapy water.

Now an even nicer early Mousehole dish 15.5 inches x 9 inches.
here's a before and after pic.





Martin - did you buy that dish ?

a nice example of a mousehole fish dish

You've probably seen this that came up on a well know auction site, but thought I'd add it here anyway.

A very unusual style of Bull design, the head isn't just looking forward it's completely tilted at 90 degrees. I could be wrong, but to my eye this heavily worked image says Bill's handy work to me. Every part of the bull's body is covered in design and the boarder has 'black' checkered design on top of the brown/purple swirls with a black dot on top of the blue - design upon design! Also unusual is the 'sprayed' brown background, rather than the usual sponged/painted Yellow or Blue background.



The black has spread obsuring the right eye, but when held to catch the light the full face shows up better.


The underside has a boarder of brown/purple swirls and a Mouslehole label.



It wasn't cheap, but for me this was a must have

here is a tall mug i picked up a few days ago and it measures approx 7"tall

signed on the reverse w fisher. its not quite round , more of egg shape.... approx 8" across

here is the fish bowl next to a normal egg shaped bowl



the W Fisher piece measures 8" from the mouth side to the tail and just over 7" from top to bottom

the decoration on this tea tray seems to be part lion/part Chinese dragon but whatever it's meant to be IT'S MAGNIFICENT!

dantheman wrote:



Early Celtic mug,sponged blue glazes,brushed pewter glaze and scrafitto

here you go dan... this is very similar to the one i picked up today

Here's an interesting one I know some have seen, with a few unusual features.

I rather nice Bull bowl 7.5inch diam 1.75inch tall



It stands on a shallow foot ring.


What I couldn't see from the pic's before buying and am having trouble getting a photo to clearly show it - is that this one rather unusually, has a foot well rather than a flat inside. You can just about make some of it out where the flash reflects of the edges of the foot well - base of left horn, passing between the eyes and again around the front leg you can see the silvery line. I don't recall seeing any others with a foot well ?



The other unusual feature is the back stamp - It has one!! Which I've never seen before.


I've tended to consider the painted base as a Moushole feature, which I've only seen with Mousehole labels - until now! Whilst this doesn't exactly match any of the labels, the Style of the letters is almost the same as what I believe to be their first Newlyn label

So my best guess would be that this is an early Newlyn piece, possibly before the new labels were ready? The only difference being lower case letters for Celtic rather than all Capitals. The quality of the image is also much better than I associate with the later work.

Anyone else come across this back stamp or foot well?