TO BE PUBLISHED IN JUNE 2024

Art pottery was made in Ireland during the nineteenth century, in response to a demand for art industry products, from consumers influenced by the ideals of the Arts and Crafts Movement. It also reflected developments in design education and the rise of national identity during the Celtic Revival. The story of “Irish Art Pottery”, made in Dublin during the 1870s and 1880s, opens a door onto a previously unexplored world; an artistic community where, against the backdrop of controversy about James Whistler’s exhibition of paintings at the Dublin Sketching Club, social change led to the beginning of women’s education and recognition of artisans’ rights. 

This work documents the National Museum’s collection of Vodrey Dublin Pottery (VDP) and the ceramics hand-painted by Herbert Cooper and his students at the Queen's Institute (QI). It includes a small number of objects from the Ulster Museum, part of an original acquisition of Vodrey Dublin Pottery by the Department of Science and Art in Dublin during the 1880s. These functional and ornamental objects range from tea and coffee sets, moustache cups and dessert plates, to bulb pots, jardinières, vases, and ornamental plaques, reflecting fashionable taste in home decoration of the middle and upper classes in Dublin during the late nineteenth century. 

Author Bio

Dr. Aisling Molloy has lectured in Design History at the Limerick School of Art and Design (Limerick Institute of Technology), University of Limerick (UL) and the Hunt Museum in Limerick, Ireland. She has published articles in the Irish Arts Review, History Ireland, the Journal of Design History, Irish Studies Review, and Ceramics Ireland.  She studied the History of Art at University College Dublin (B.A., 1983, M.A., 1992), and received a PhD (2007) in Design History for her doctoral thesis on the ceramic designer, Frederick Vodrey, from the Royal College of Art/Victoria and Albert Museum, London.