2010/69

Earthenware plant pot made by Quentin Bell in 1951. From Charleston the farmhouse of the Bloomsbury set where Quentin Bell grew up.
This earthenware plant pot with a blue glaze and yellow floral decoration was made by Quentin Bell (1910–1996) in 1951. The base is inscribed ‘GH from QB 1951’ and was given as a present by Quentin Bell to Grace Higgens, who worked as a maid, nurse, cook and housekeeper at Charleston, the farmhouse of the Bloomsbury set where Quentin Bell grew up.

MERL 'Handwritten accession' form (Museum of English Rural Life) – ‘Description: Clay plant pot, blue glaze with floral decoration. Made by Quentin Bell (1910–96) // Inscribed on base ‘GH from QB 1951’ (Grace Higgins from Quentin Bell). // Dimensions: 11 cm diameter at top // x 11 cm high // Associated information: Purchased as part of the Collecting 20thc Rural Culture project. // Strong association with Charleston farmhouse, Sussex. Grace Higgins was maid & housekeeper at Charleston for 50 years. Quentin Bell, son of Vanessa, spent a lot of time there in his youth. // References: …', Collecting 20thc Rural Culture blog [Thursday, 15 July 2010] – ‘Plant pot by Quentin Bell, 1951 // Here's something from another equally well-connected twentieth century potter. Quentin Bell (1910-1996), product of the unconventional marriage between Clive and Vanessa Bell, grew up amongst members of the artistic and literary Bloomsbury set who were frequent visitors to Charleston, the farmhouse near Firle set idyllically into the Sussex downland, that his mother occupied from 1916 through to her death in 1961. It's outwardly an eighteenth century building with a sixteenth century inner core but, from the unique interior decoration applied by Vanessa Bell and her friends, is best remembered now as perhaps the clearest physical expression of the twentieth century connection between art and the countryside. // The base of the pot is inscribed GH from QB 1951 and we know from the provenance that this was a present, Christmas or birthday one imagines, from Quentin Bell to Grace Higgens, who worked at Charleston as variously maid, nurse, cook and housekeeper for fifty years from the age of 16 in 1920. An indispensable part of Charleston life, she was close to the leading players and her own extensive archive of diaries and correspondence is now in the Briitsh Library. // Quentin Bell continued his potting but was also part of the academic world, as a professor of fine art in the 1960s and 70s, and also wrote an acclaimed biography of his aunt, Virginia Woolf, which was published in 1972.’

1951 - 1951