The Leach Pottery. St Ives

I got my print very reasonably off an art dealing friend several years ago. The Penwith Portfolio contains a series of prints by individual artists such as Henry Moore, Ben Nicholson, Barbara Hepworth, Alan Davie, Peter Lanyon and the like, so to the art world the one by Bernard Leach was not the most sort after.

picked up this small janet leach footed dish before i went on holiday. if anybody has a (rough) idea of value could they PM me please. its approx 4" square and about 1" tall

here are the markings on the base

I believe that's Janet Leach's mark - JL in a triangle.

These dishes with the impressed REPEAT as well as Janet's personal seal and Leach Pottery seal were made by Janet almost up to the end of her life. I have just checked and back in 1995 they were £21 from the pottery. She made them in series but no two were exactly the same. If you bought it for £30 and it is in perfect condition then you did exceptionally well, as I sold one for almost £100 more on that well known auction site some time ago.

As you might have noticed, I have been going through images of pots from the past today and below are a couple of vases by Janet Leach.



I know that her work is not everyone's cup of tea but one of my favorites, although not everything quite works.

.......... and a Kenneth Quick lidded storage jar. It did have his personal seal and the Leach Pottery seal but unfortunately I never saved an image.

My teeny tiny Bernard Leach lidded pot. I understand that towards the end of his life his stamp was used a bit indiscriminately by other Leach potters, but I'd like to think the great man had a little to do with this piece! Got it from a Devon auction house not so long ago and it didn't break the bank (to my great surprise)!

Although Janet wanted others potters to use Bernard's personal seal once he had stopped potting, I have seen no evidence that it ever happened. I think that it is common knowledge that Bill Marshall was largely and on occasions solely responsible for making some of Bernard's larger pots but I think that it is safe to say that your little pot was made by Bernard. I think that he was a reasonable thrower but his pots did become increasingly heavy as he got older.

Little St Ives jug with sgraffito decoration

Yes. I have a little standard ware jug and it's beautifully made and glazed.
7.9cm (height)

Another example of a porringer, I'm led to believe it is not unusual for them not to be stamped? I hope so!

mowen wrote:Another example of a porringer, I'm led to believe it is not unusual for them not to be stamped? I hope so!

Items of Standard ware would normally have the impressed St. Ives seal but stamps always get missed, especially on items that are the responsibility of more than one person. Your bowl looks fine, even if it has no stamp, but a little less easy to sell.

I didn't pay much for it, but I really liked it, and thought it looked 'right', I'm glad you think so to! I am surprised at the range of sizes the leach pottery used. On bits I have the marks range from 5mm to 15mm depending on the size of the object. Logical I 'spose but just surprising to me

They were making for over 70 years (I don't regard the current operation as being the Leach Pottery) and each potter would most likely have had at least one St Ives seal and some even more so not surprising.

Just came across an image of a Leach Pottery earthenware mug/tankard from the late 1920s/early 1930s that I kept for a number of years. I have mentioned elsewhere that I do shy away from pots with damage but with earthenware I seem to be able to tolerate small nibbles and glaze flaking as this has.