Glazed Earthenware Frog, the Dunmore Pottery, ca. 1890

This turquoise glazed earthenware flower vase, 175 mm high, is shaped as a Chinese grotesque three-legged lucky money frog, a traditional symbol of prosperity and wellbeing.  The Dunmore Pottery made the ornament in a number of colours and in various sizes. An alternative version has the same frog in a seated position with its head raised and mouth open to hold flowers.

The Dunmore Pottery made numerous animal-shaped vases and ornaments to suit Victorian taste.  Some were of a naturalistic design, such as the much reproduced seated pig, which in more highly decorated form, was also famously made by the Wemyss factory in Fife by the firm of Robert Heron & Son.  The owl was another popular subject and both the pig and the owl were produced in large numbers as moneyboxes.  Oriental design was popular in the later nineteenth century as trade with the east expanded and the international exhibition movement exposed a wider audience to imports from China or Japan.  

The Dunmore Pottery near Airth in rural Stirlingshire was established in the late eighteenth century to take advantage of a seam of local clay that could be fashioned into domestic wares and tiles. Peter Gardener (1834-1919), who took over his father’s business in 1866, was a gifted designer and clever entrepreneur, adept at exploiting international exhibitions and aristocratic patronage to forward his reputation.  The firm remained a small concern with only fifteen skilled potters at its peak in 1881. The Scotsman in 1886 highlighted Gardener’s ‘vases of artistic design, flower pots of various shapes and colours, garden seats and pedestals of lovely appearance, mantelpiece, table, and other useful and ornamental goods of excellent finish’.  Dunmore pottery was sold through high-end shops throughout Britain and abroad.  The company also had a specialist line in commemorative wares, mostly marking marriages or anniversaries.

The Dunmore Pottery was well known for its vivid glazes, as in this example of bright turquoise.  One of the best selling lines were the crackled red and turquoise glaze vases that caught the attention of Queen Victoria when first exhibited at the Edinburgh International Exhibition of 1886 and were subsequently named ‘Queen’s Vases’. Dunmore pottery was exhibited abroad as well as in Scotland, including the Philadelphia Exhibition of 1876, but it was the Glasgow Exhibition of 1888 that saw the biggest and most spectacular display, with the ‘Lady Dunmore Bowl’ garnering much praise.

The Dunmore Pottery success was partly founded on tourist sales, which was instrumental in the development of several types of Scottish craft production aimed at the souvenir market. There is a tourist guide to the pottery itself.  The company closed in 1919 following Peter Gardner’s death.