A Pansy for Good Thoughts

 Pansy flowers evoke happy childhood memories of my Nana's garden.

Looking into this phrase, pansies relate to loving thoughts, remembrance. They are February's birth flower. I have happy memories of my Nana's flower gardens. I remember the velvety petalled pansies with their 'painted' orange, yellow, violet and burgundy faces lined up along the narrow concrete path as I pedalled past on my trike. They appeared to nod with happiness just like my Nana's face when I visited. She loved her flower garden especially the perfumed stock, daphne, sweet peas and old English roses. I almost get a hint of their perfume while I'm writing this post. Whenever I see pansies my thoughts go back to the fun times at Nana's house on Albert Road in Riverhead. 


 Cameron Brown created many wall vase designs, each one individual in design and colourings. He enjoyed designing the moulds but his passion was the glaze combinations. This is evident with the pansy wall vases. It was Dorothy who painted them. They were a very popular seller. 


There were between 300-500 pansies made from 1953/54 up until the early 60s. They have four firing feet on the base and are imprinted with Titian Studio in italics. Due to the slip cast moulds only lasting for about 50 castings there are slight variations between them. The base photo below was made very close to the name change from 'Sherwood Pottery' to 'Titian Studio'. The four firing feet lifted the wall vase off the kiln shelf when they were fired, to ensure they were 'cooked' underneath. From chatting with the Browns, they say from 1957 they were numbered *WV.103.


*WV.103 - The information about the coding of the pansy wall vases were told to me by Cam Brown jnr. I have no reason to believe they weren't produced after 1957 however, I've never seen an example with the foot ring or a product code. 

I hope you like it. Feel free to comment and share.

Happy days,
Louise

©Louise de Varga 2022 - Content and pictures in this blog 

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