Tall Conical Table Lamp w. Sgraffito

A large hand-thrown and hand-decorated pottery lamp, made by Rye Pottery, England, circa 1953.

The tall lamp is conical in shape, wide at the bottom and narrower at the top. Connecting the two diameters are straight sides. This simple, geometric shape is a brilliant backdrop for the more organic and naturalistic surface decoration on the lamp. The lamp is decorated in the round in the sgraffito technique. Thin straight lines of varying lengths have been scratched into the thick ivory-white coloured glaze covering the lamp. Resultantly, we can see through to the more biscuit coloured pottery underneath.

Rye pottery employed the sgraffito technique in their work, to much success, shortly after their inclusion at The Festival of Britain in 1951.