Doulton Lambeth Frank Butler Moon Flask

Description

Offered for sale is an extremely rare Moon Flask Vase by famed Doulton Lambeth artist Frank Butler.

An early piece, dated 1877, this piece is an absolute feast of design and art features to take in. Decorated with scroll pattern taking inspiration from the very first Doulton Lambeth artist, George Tinworth, both sides of the vase are decorated with this wonderful beadwork effect but with different colour-ways. On the one side is brown and purple, to the other is green and brown. Within ornate beaded and antelope horn frames are two superb roundels, depicting infants as roman soldiers, the one a legion, the other an aquilifer.

The roundels are likely to have been made by John Broad, Tinworth or Frank Butler, but this is not indicated beneath. The edges of vase are decorated with banded pipework and the flat slides are decorated with blue foliate designs repeated down the vase to the base. Get to the base, and the feet are a thing of beauty, not short stubs like on other moon flasks, but worked and ornate feet that round upwards to finish this special piece.

In excellent, undamaged and unrestored original condition, the vase is marked clearly with the 1870s Doulton Lambeth stamp, Butler’s “FAB” initials and 1877. This is a signature “centre piece” vase for any serious collection and will certainly not disappoint!

Sourced from a private collection in Paris, this item is likely to have been originally marketed and sold on Doulton Lambeth’s stand at the International Exhibition held in Paris in 1878, given it is dated 1877. Whilst it cannot be proven, it seems too convenient that such a wonderful item should surface in Paris with a date of 1877 when the exhibition was so closely dated!