Vintage Ridgways Old Ivory Bedford Ware Bowl – Gold Urns, Blue Scrollwork Medallion, Fluted Sides, Hand Painted, England 1920s

Four gold urns stand at the compass points of a central medallion, their baroque silhouettes connected by curling blue C-scrolls filled with a fine gold stipple — as if the centre of this bowl were a page from an illuminated manuscript. Between the scrollwork, tiny hand-painted bouquets in yellow, pink, and blue anchor the design to something living. A ring of cobalt blue frames the whole composition, and beyond it, the walls of the bowl rise in tight radial fluting that catches and redirects light with every turn.

At the rim, a second world begins — a geometric border of blue parallel lines and short bars broken at intervals by miniature flower sprays, each one painted by hand. The entire upper edge is finished in a heavy gilt band that reads more like gilded metalwork than ceramic glaze.

This is Bedford Ware — the decorated line from Ridgways' Bedford Works, one of the most important factories in the Stoke-on-Trent pottery district. The Ridgway family's involvement in ceramics dates to 1792, when brothers Job and George Ridgway began potting in Hanley. Edward John Ridgway opened the Bedford Works along the Caldon Canal in 1866, and under the name Ridgways (from 1879) the factory produced earthenware of considerable ambition and craft. The "Old Ivory" range was their warm-glazed prestige line. Ridgways merged with Booths and Colclough in the 1940s and eventually became part of Royal Doulton.