El orientalismo en la producción cerámica de William de Morgan (1839-1917): las corrientes persa, iznik y andalusí

Abstract

A key period for the study of the history of contemporary design was the second half of the 19th century, when the Arts & Crafts movement was developed in Great Britain, promoted by William Morris. Interestingly, one of his closest collaborators, the potter William de Morgan (1839-1917), has not received much attention from researchers. Through this paper, we contribute with new visions of its pottery inspired by the Islamic tradition, contextualizing the creation of its pieces at a time of boom in Orientalism. It was precisely then that several British public and private collections were enriched with precious ceramic objects from ancient Persia, the Ottoman Empire or Spain. The existing publications on William de Morgan do not analyze how these influences determined his production, a question that we address in the present study. In order to achieve this goal, we have used documents as his discourse on lustre ware ceramics presented to the Royal Society of Arts in 1892, as well as many of his designs hoarded in the collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London (V&A). In this way we have been able to delve into the impact of Orientalism on nineteenth-century ceramics, highlighting the relevance that ancient Persian, Ottoman and Andalusian designs had when it came to renovating European decorative arts.