Royal Worcester blush ivory ewer with dragon handle

Royal Worcester - 1890
 
Royal Worcester blush ivory comes in many forms and tones and the decoration has an equally varied number of styles. What often singles it out for me though if the shapes, and in particular those of the handles.

Dragon, seamonsters, masks and faces have all been cast, tooled and gilded to make pieces that look alive.

This example here, made in 1890, has the most superb dragon coiled around the neck and literally clinging to the side to form the handle. The three dimensional quality of the face and claws are fantastic and also the way a red ground layer has been used underneath the gold to give depth and tone to the dragon’s gilded scales.

This is all before you even look at the elegant and somewhat classical forms of the ewer body with its ribbed sides and slanted lip.