Pride of place SUNDERLAND LUSTRE

Admired for its pearly-pink glaze and often beguiling inscriptions, Sunderland lustre is a collector’s dream, says Janet Gleeson in her first column on regional antiques

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Has your eye ever been drawn to a jug in a mottled, iridescent rose-pink glaze, framing a simple printed image of a sailing ship, or an imposing iron bridge? Have you ever been intrigued by a bowl embellished with erratic lavender marbling? Or entertained by a purple-splashed chamber pot adorned with a bawdy verse that makes you smile? Answer yes to any of the above, and you, like many others, have probably fallen for the charms of Sunderland lustre pottery. Although potteries in the North East of England were at the vanguard of those capitalising on the popularity of lustre decoration in the early 1800s, they were soon joined by potteries in Staffordshire, Newcastle, Bristol, Swansea and elsewhere. These similarly decorated wares are often hard to distinguish from those made in Sunderland so, today, any ceramics bearing metallic decoration combined with printed images (sometimes hand-coloured), are grouped under the same generic name.