A Victorian Minton pottery and oak trough, late 19th/early 20th century

Minton was one of the most significant ceramic producers of the nineteenth century and one of the foremost names in the history of Victorian design. First founded in 1793 by Thomas Minton (1765-1838), the company was then much expanded upon and diversified by his son Herbert Minton (1793-1858). Under his leadership, the company took an innovative path that saw it develop new image transfer techniques and harness the Victorian appetite for a multiplicity of global and revivalist designs. While their encaustic tiles drew inspiration from Gothic techniques, they also found success with more Classical designs and also those that, like the tiles on the present lot, were inspired by the geometric splendour of Islamic tilemaking at Iznik. This pattern is often called the 'Persian' design, though Iznik is located in the Anatolia region which is located in modern-day Turkey. The Minton archive holds a watercolour for a design that is similar to this 'Persian' design, dating from the second half of the nineteenth century (accession number SD 1705/MS1798). The archive also holds patent registrations for jardinières like the present one dating from March 1870 (accession number SD 1705/MS795), implying that the tiles and the planter will have been produced contemporaneously.