Della Robbia Pottery

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The Della Robbia Pottery was a ceramic factory founded in 1894 in Birkenhead, near Liverpool, England. It closed in 1906. Initially it mostly made large pieces with high artistic aspirations, especially relief panels for architectural use, but also ornamental vessels and plates, intended for display rather than use.

The name was taken from the famous family workshop founded by Luca della Robbia in 15th-century Florence, which specialized in large coloured reliefs installed on walls. Some of the Birkenhead pieces imitated this style closely, while others drew from the more general style of Italian maiolica.

The pottery was established as a true Arts & Crafts pottery on the lines advocated by William Morris, using local labour and raw materials such as local red clay from Moreton, Wirral. The pottery, all earthenware, had lustrous lead glazes and often used patterns of interweaving plants, typical of Art Nouveau, with heraldic and Islamic motifs.^[1]

It wares are not to be confused with earlier wares marked "Della Robbia" produced by Charles Canning in Tamworth. These were often smaller items in more conventional Victorian taste, with painting, often floral, sometimes in overglaze enamel, rather than the coloured glazes used in Birkenhead.^[2]

In the early 20th century, Roseville pottery, an American pottery company used "Della Robbia" as a brand for wares (now very expensive) designed by Frederick Hurten Rhead, who emigrated from England in 1902.^[3]