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| Click image for all the dead-rabbity goodness. Minton Stew Tureen England, 1866 The Victoria & Albert Museum |
Who doesn’t want a bas relief dead rabbit on their soup tureen? Well, maybe I don’t. But, even though this Minton tureen from 1866 is adorned with the corpses of game, it’s still rather attractive.
This dish, cover and its liner feature a handsomely molded, and rather realistic, group of game, oak leaves, ferns, and a crow arranged in a representation of a wicker basket. Glazed in deep greens and browns, the piece is afforded additional realism from the majolica glazes. Clearly, the tureen was made to serve some sort of disturbing game stew. It’s the sort of thing that when brought to the table, the diners would be able to look at it and know that they were about to get a tasty, hot, wet dinner of rabbit and duckies. This was a favorite thing to do for Victorian designers who thought it amusing to represent the function of an object in its decoration.
The tureen is the work of Léon Arnoux (1816-1902), the art director at the Minton Ceramic Factory of Stoke-on-Trent, England. Amoux had a preoccupation with Renaissance pottery and Sixteenth-century tin-glazed painted Italian maiolica and based his work on these past designs. In 1849, this interest led to the debut of “Palissy Ware” based on the designs of Bernard Palissy and with a nod to the Italian Renaissance style. Later, by the 1880s, these Nineteenth Century recreations became known as “majolica ware”—a term which sticks to this day in regard to all such wares whether made by Minton or not.
The reverse of the liner is marked: “Minton 86 8” and displays a date symbol for 1866.
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