We went to the Towner Gallery in Eastbourne at the weekend – it was raining so not really garden visiting weather – and what a treat to visit the Eric Ravilious exhibition there.
One thing I was completely taken with was the Garden pattern collection of plates, cups and jugs Ravilious designed for Wedgewood in 1938.
There was something so nostalgic (and I suspect it was even then) in the motifs of croquet, reading and tree felling, and I loved reading how the next year he added a lemonade set featuring garden implements. A lemonade set! Here’s a recipe I found for next summer.
In fact, I was so taken that I rushed to Ebay once we were home to see if I could find a piece for my very own. Only to see the prices…
Aha, I will however be searching through charity shops in the hope I might get lucky… and if not, I may just go back to my childhood and sip my homemade lemonade from acorn cups in a kind of fairy tea party. Did anyone else used to do that?
Of course, the most famous dinner service featuring gardens was the 50 place Frog Service created for Catherine the Great in 1773 with views of over 1,000 different English gardens. Here’s one you can see in the V&A in London, it’s of the lake at West Wycombe and the catalogue says, rather sadly, “In the event this particular dish was not sent to Russia, probably because it was replaced by one with a more interesting view.”
But back to Ravilious’s Garden design. Here’s the poem I wrote for it…
Tea with Josiah Wedgewood and Eric Ravilious
Every time I sip from this cup
I’m a woman in lacy cuffs
dreaming at an open window
as she watches a lemon tree
turning damp soil into sunshine,
I’m photographs of all the pools
I’ll never dive into, I smell
of lavender on clean sheets,
and I move as quickly as a rake
cleaning the fallen leaves.
And it’s only when I wake that I feel
like mismatched china in a castle
tea-room where the scones are too dry
but I don’t care because I’ve still
so many things left to say,
such as how doing nothing is always doing
something, and that the first wheelbarrows
were made in China although not of china,
and yesterday when I had my tarot read
I learnt it’s the fool who swings the highest.
Perhaps you are the lucky bidder at this auction for a full service here… in which case I hope you use it with all the joy it was designed with!
I’m already planning a trip next year to the full Wedgewood Collection tour.
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