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Bendigo Pottery
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Bendigo Pottery had been in existence, in one form or another, since the mid-19th century. In step with the times, the firm introduced its successful Waverly Ware line of artware in the early 1930s. The new line included many older patterns from the Bendigo repertory done up in new colour combinations. Bendigo artware of the thirties is somewhat drab and uninteresting compared to that of some other producers. The glorious heyday of decorative pottery at Bendigo had been the 1880s. There is little in Bendigo’s 1930s output that even approaches those earlier wares for imaginative use of colour and form—but of course the ornate Victorian styles were no longer marketable. |
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This slip-cast brown jug with petal-shaped markings is an updated version of Rockingham-glazed wares going back into the previous century. Two-tone patterns like this, called ‘agate glaze’, were generally produced by firing a partial white glaze on the body before dipping the pot in a coloured glaze for a second firing. Similar patterned wares were made by other firms. |
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The small green and brown globe vase is somewhat unusual for Bendigo; its colours are deeper and more interesting than the light tans and greens used on most Bendigo artware of the 1930s. |
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The green and amber globe vase is typical Waverley Ware (as Bendigo labelled its 1930s art pottery). Similar shapes and glazes were used by Bendigo from the mid-thirties through the ’forties. Sometimes collectors use the term Waverley ware generically to refer to all two-toned glazed Australian commercial pottery. |
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The mottled brown globe vase is another variant on patterned Rockingham glazes; this one shows a sort of tortoise-shell effect. The shape was manufactured by Bendigo in various colours for many years. |
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The mottled brown jug is similar in modelling and identical in glaze treatment to the vase above. Unlike the vase, which is wheel-thrown, the jug was slip cast. |
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The high-shouldered blue vase is also of a shape that Bendigo produced for many years in varied finishes. |
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This fancy-handled agate-glazed sugar bowl was part of a long-popular tea service, sold by Bendigo as ‘Canadian’ ware.
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