Glaze Pot Used at Buchan's Pottery

Category

Museums & Galleries Item

Item no

52381

Title

Purple glaze pot used by painter decorators at Buchan's pottery, Portobello

Description

One small ceramic pot used for containing glaze used by painter decorators at the A. W Buchan pottery at Portobello. Small round pot with steep sloping sides, and a roughly painted purple blue rim. Inside and all around the outside is dried pink glaze. When glazed, the colour would have matched the fired glaze on the rim.

Type

Ceramic

Accession number

TIN3102

Copyright

The City of Edinburgh Council Museums & Galleries

The Auld Reekie Retold project took a new look at the Buchan pottery and the life of the people who worked there. Four former employees of the company came to the Museum Collections Centre to look at the collection of Buchan ware and share their experiences. Together, they swapped stories and memories of their time at the potteries. Seeing the objects again reminded them of things they had forgotten, and the curator was able to add some valuable first-hand information to the museum records.

In the factory, the women who painted were overseen by supervisors who made sure that the painting was up to the high standard expected. The women were provided with the correct glazes for each design and would look forward to receiving new glaze pots and brushes. The amount of work being produced meant that huge quantities of materials and tools were gone through.

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Glaze pot used at Buchan's pottery