Faience Manufacturing Tiles
date: label: date made
content: c. 1880-1885
name: label: maker
content: Lycett, Edward
notes: label: Description
content: About the Arts and Crafts Movement:
label: Description
content: Beginning in England in the early 1880s, the Arts and Crafts movement spread across the United States and Europe by the late 1880s. It celebrated the importance of beauty in everyday objects and urged a reconnection to nearby nature. The movement resisted the way industrial mass production undermined artisan crafts and was inspired by the ideas of artisan William Morris and writer John Ruskin. Valuing hand-made objects using traditional materials, it was known for a color palette of earth tones. Its artistic principles replaced realistic, colorful, and three-dimensional designs with more abstract and simplified forms using subdued tones. Stylized plant forms and matte glazes echoed a shift to quiet restraint in household décor. The Arts and Crafts movement also embraced social ideals, including respect for skilled hand labor and concern for the quality of producers’ lives. The movement struggled with the tension between the cost of beautiful crafts and the limited number of households able to afford them. Some potters relied on practical products such as drain tiles to boost income or supported themselves with teaching or publications. Arts and Crafts influence extended to other endeavors, including furniture, such as Stickley’s Mission Style, and architecture, such as the Arts and Crafts bungalow, built widely across the United States. American Arts and Crafts pottery flourished between 1880 and the first World War, though several potteries continued in successful operation into the later 20^th^ century.
label: Description
content: About Faience Manufacturing Company: The Faience Manufacturing Company was an early commercial art pottery established in 1880 in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, New York. Initially, the factory produced cream-colored earthenware with underglaze painting in the style of the fashionable French faience and Limoges pottery; faience, the white tin-glazed earthenware used in France, inspired the company name. Four years later, the firm hired the well-known English potter Edward Lycett as decorator and director, and he introduced a new clay body and hard porcelain glaze. The Faience wares became known for their Near Eastern forms, eccentric handles, and elaborate jewel-like ornament; exotic imagery of Japanese birds and flowers was common. The larger pieces, often requiring more than one firing, resulted in their elevated status as expensive one-of-a-kind art objects. However, the pottery also produced smaller objects such as trays, perfume vases, and boxes. Lycett left the firm in 1890 when it was sold, and the firm closed in 1891.
label: Description
content: About the Object:
label: Description
content: A set of three framed tiles with low relief molded stylized flowers. Tiles glazed with bue and yellow iridescent glazes supposed to be Lycett's rediscovery of the lost Persian Luster glazes. Titled, "Reflet Metallique, Reflet nacre" and set in a white enameled frame.
label: Description
content: Handwritten on paper backing:
label: Description
content: "Presented to the Smithsonian Institute by Edward Lycett, Atlanta, GA - 1985."
label: Description
content: "From 'Chiefs d'oeuvres of the Industrial Arts' by Burty - The secret of making glazed tiles with a metallic lustre upon them such as were found in the ruins of Mesopotamia and especially at Khorsabad ought never to have been lost in the midst of a nation endowed with so refined and keen a sense of the decorative art."
label: Description
content: "These tiles appear better if placed away from the light and at the proper angle of reflection opposite to the light."
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: New York, Brooklyn, Greenpoint
topic: label: Subject
content: Art Pottery
setName: label: See more items in
content: Home and Community Life: Ceramics and Glass
label: See more items in
content: Art
label: See more items in
content: Domestic Furnishings
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Gift of Edward Lycett
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: CE.96353
label: catalog number
content: 96353
label: accession number
content: 30323
objectType: label: Object Name
content: tiles
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: black (overall color)
label: Physical Description
content: polychrome (overall surface decoration color name)
label: Physical Description
content: ceramic (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: wood (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: frame: 14 in x 5 in; 35.56 cm x 12.7 cm
label: Measurements
content: part: tile: 4 1/4 in x 4 1/4 in; x 10.795 cm x 10.795 cm
label: Measurements
content: part: tile: 4 1/4 in x 4 1/4 in; x 10.795 cm x 10.795 cm
label: Measurements
content: part: tile: 4 1/4 in x 4 1/4 in; x 10.795 cm x 10.795 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall: 3/4 in x 13 13/16 in x 5 3/16 in; 1.905 cm x 35.08375 cm x 13.17625 cm