Square ceramic tile painted black with light grey-blue designs overtop. Surface is glazed, sides partially glazed. Border on all sides with rectangles inside of it. Rectangles filled with diagonal lines. Small squares at the tile corners, inside of the border, with crosses in their middles. Central design of a sandpiper, standing on one leg, surrounded by reeds. Raised grid across entire back of tile. Manufacturer’s mark, Minton Hollins & Co., stamped inside grid, with each letter in its own square.

• Iconographic Meaning

  The bird depicted is Sandpiper, a type of shorebird. Design may have been by John Windsor Bradburn, an in-house designer at Minton, Hollins & Co.

• Specific Techniques

  Tile was manufactured by dust-pressing, a technique that uses clay milled to a fine powder with low moisture content, then pressed in a die at high pressure. The design was transfer printed, a technique in which an image from an engraved plate is transferred to a tile, usually, requiring transfer paper to be run through a printing press with the engraved plate to pick up the ink, the design from the transfer paper could then be rubbed onto the tile.

• Cultural Context

  Wall tile. Minton, Hollins & Co.

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• Type of Item tile
• Culture English
• Material clay, paint, glaze
• Manufacturing Technique dust-pressed, transfer-printed
• Measurements height 15.3 cm, width 15.3 cm, depth 1.1 cm (overall)

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• Creator Mintons, John Windsor Bradburn
• Previous Owner Judith Stoffman
• Received from Judith Stoffman

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• Made in United Kingdom, Stoke-on-Trent

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• Creation Date between 1875 and 1900
• Ownership Date before October 30, 2019
• Acquisition Date on October 30, 2019

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• Item Classes ceramics
• Condition good
• Accession Number 3401/0019