Artist Spotlight: The work of Dame Magdalene Odundo

Posted on September 12, 2024November 25, 2024 by Stephanie Connell

Dame Magdalene Odundo (Kenyan/ British, b. 1950) is arguably one of the most important artists working in Britain today and the definitive contemporary ceramicist of the modern era.

Odundo’s oeuvre typically consist of sculpture in clay and on occasion in glass. These forms simultaneously traditional and modern – equally unpretentious and layered with meaning. Her work is almost timeless – galleries exhibiting her pieces often choosing to display them alongside historical artifacts and objects from societies which she has taken inspiration from.

The creation of her work is a complicated process. The sculptural vessels are predominantly hand-built coiled pots, formed in terracotta, using a traditional technique learned in Nigeria. They are typically decorated in slip, multi-fired and polished. Her work is recognisable by the strength of the form and glazes – usually either almost metallic in burnished brown/ black or orange/ red oxide.

Odundo, has discussed the closeness the shapes of her work take to the human form – and that naming terms for pottery vessels such as ‘neck’ and ‘body’ make pots anthropomorphic – vessels have the exterior on show, whilst the interior is hidden, as individuals do.

In recent years Odundo’s status has been reflected by a significant number of dedicated exhibitions of her work. These exhibitions have included Magdalene Odundo: The Journey of Things held at The Hepworth Wakefield (February 2019 – June 2019) and Sainsbury Centre (August 2019 – December 2019); Magdalene Odundo in Cambridge at the Fitzwilliam Museum (December 2021 – June 2022); Magdalene Odundo: A Dialogue with Objects held at the Gardiner Museum, Canada (October 2023 – April 2024) and the exhibition currently being held at Houghton Hall, Norfolk (* until 29^th September 2024).

Dame Magdalene Anyango Odundo was born in Nairobi in 1950 and spent her childhood in India, Nairobi, and Mombasa. She was primarily educated in Kenya by Irish nuns – and according to the artist had little knowledge of ceramics. The colonial education system invariably overlooking the chiefly female tradition of making pots for food preparation.

She initially trained in Kenya as a Commercial and Graphic Artist. She travelled to the UK in 1971 to continue her studies – she has lived and worked in England since this time.

Between 1971 – 1973 Odundo was a student at Cambridge College of Art. It was here she first discovered her passion for ceramics. As she revealed in a 2021 interview

“The first time I actually encountered clay I just literally fell in love with it”.

Magdalene Odundo has discussed the importance of clay to her work, considering the connection between pottery and the earth – to quote “you come from it, and you go back to it”. She has referenced how ceramics have been used to produce vessels throughout human history and across civilisations. The corelation between the shapes she creates – the human form and therefore condition – are also pivotal.

She achieved a BA in Ceramics at West Surrey College of Art and Design (renamed University of Creative Arts) between 1973 – 6. Odundo became a University Professor at this institution in 2001 and Emirta Professor in 2016 and Chancellor of the institution. Magdalene Odundo is closely linked with Surrey and is based in Farnham.

During the early part of her career, Odundo, visited Kenya, Nigeria, and the Pueblo people in New Mexico to learn pottery building and glazing techniques. In 1976 The Hepworth Wakefield made the first acquisition on of her work by a UK institution – ‘Eniasulo (Water Carrier)’ (1974-6). She was awarded a Masters in Ceramics from the Royal College of Art in 1982. It was after her exhibition in the early 1980s that appreciation of her work became more widespread.

The Magdalene Odundo exhibition currently being displayed at Houghton Hall, Norfolk brings together several of Odundo’s important works in both ceramics and more unusually glass. The show is the first at Houghton dedicated to the work of a female artist and additionally a black artist. The exhibition aims to create a juxtaposition and a dialogue between the opulent interiors of the Palladian house and Odundo’s contemporary sculptures.

One of the most impactful pieces is a new work displayed as a dining table centrepiece in Houghton Hall’s Marble Parlour. The work was produced during Dame Odundo’s yearlong residency at Wedgwood, Stoke on Trent. The piece reflects upon Wedgwood founder Josiah Wedgwood’s campaigning for the abolition of slavery and work as a ceramicist. This large multi-tiered sculpture is atypical of Magdalene Odundo’s work.

To quote the artist

“It is the first time I’ve used narrative and figure and ornament in my work, because my own work is very paired down, very plain. The discovery of all the ornaments and the figures within the Wedgwood tradition gave me a platform to use narrative and storytelling”.

Odundo uses Jasperware – instantly recognisable as Wedgwood in Black and Cane colours, first used in the 1770s. The lower two-tiers feature horrifying symbols of slavery, and figures, akin to of those depicted in the shocking 18^th century Brook’s slave ship illustration. The upper tier has images of recent protest in Nairobi. Odundo was able to refer to the design in the Wedgwood archive, including the anti-slavery medallions.

For the Houghton Hall exhibition, her modern objects are placed in contrast with the antique and historic pieces, within interiors designed by William Kent for Robert Walpole.

In the Green Velvet Bedchamber where typically a pair of Chinese porcelain cranes are on display – one has been replaced by Magdalene Odundo’s ‘Untitled’ (1995) – these two ceramic pieces seem to be in a direct dialogue with one another. The shape of Odundo’s vessel and black glaze complimented by the chinoiserie cabinet it sits upon.

In the Stone Hall seven objects are on display – five in the centre of the room raised on plinths – and a pair in orange glaze set within alcoves. Against the bright white stone, the black and orange glazed sculptures are shown to their best advantage.

The Magdalene Odundo exhibition is currently being held in parallel with one-hundred Anthony Gormley iron sculptures – installed around the estate.

The market for Dame Magdalene Odundo’s work has been very buoyant this century. In recent years demand and prices have increased dramatically.

To illustrate, it is worth looking at pieces which have appeared on the open market historically and have been offered again this decade. In September 2006 Bonhams London offered ‘A rare Vase Form’ executed by Odundo in 1986. (Lot 220, Bonhams, International Contemporary Ceramics, 19^th September 2006) At that time the piece sold for £27,600 (including BP).

The same work described as ‘Untitled’ was offered in June 2021 at Sotheby’s London (Lot 32, British Art Evening Sale Modern/ Contemporary, 29^th June 2021). This time the vessel sold for £378,000.

Notably, ‘Untitled’ (1984) was sold by Sotheby’s in June 2022. (Lot 2, British Art: The Jubilee Auction, Sotheby’s London, 29^th June 2022). When first going under the hammer 15 years earlier at Bonhams NY the lot had been titled ‘Mixed Colour Flat-Topped Winged’ – achieving $45,000 (Lot 90, International Post-War and Contemporary Ceramic Art, Bonhams NY, 5^th June 2007). In 2022 this work sold for a second time reaching £302,400!

In July 2021 Somerset auctioneers Lawrences of Crewkerne sold a ‘Terracotta Vessel’ produced by Magdalene Odundo in 1985. The work sold for a hammer price of £94,000 (Lot 27, 19^th/ 20^th Century Design, Ceramics…, Lawrences of Crewkerne, 19^th July 2021). The same piece appeared at Sotheby’s less than three years later in June 2024. This time reaching a total of £240,000!

Over the past 18 months records for the artist work have been broken. In June 2023 Sotheby’s sold one of the most striking of her vessels ever offered at auction – Dame Magdalene Odundo’s ‘Untitled’ (1999). Against an estimate of £100,000 – 150,000, it reached £533,400.

For those wishing to view her work in person, it can be found in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NY, Pallant House Gallery in Chichester and The British Museum, London.

The ‘Magdalene Odundo’ exhibition continues at Houghton Hall until late September. A solo exhibition of her work will open at the Thomas Dane Gallery, London on 9^th October 2024 and displayed until 14^th December 2024.

Decoding Bencharong Porcelain

Posted on September 12, 2023August 9, 2024 by Ashley Crawford

During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Bencharong porcelain was considered Thailand’s most valuable ceramic ware and is still widely celebrated in Thai culture today.

First commissioned by the royal Thai court from the late Ayutthaya period (1351-1767), Bencharong wares were produced in a variety of shapes, colours, and sizes, featuring both religious and secular motifs.

These pieces are instantly recognizable for their bright palette, geometric patterns, and frequent appearance of Thai Buddhist scenes. The name “Bencharong” means “five colours” in Thai; however, most Bencharong palettes range from three to eight colours.

The Bencharong palette first included yellow, black, white, red, and turquoise. Later, blue, orange, purple, and pink increasingly appeared.There is more than meets the eye, however, as this quintessentially “Thai” form was crafted entirely in China at Jingdezhen!

The most common theory for Bencharong’s name cites a literal translation from Bencharong’s Chinese Ming predecessor, wucai (“five colours” in Chinese). Another theory links the name to bencharongse, a Thai cotton dyeing technique with a similar five-colour palette, dating to the Sukhothai period (1238-1438).

Techniques

Bencharong techniques closely resemble those of Ming and Qing wucai (sometimes called yingcai in the Qing Dynasty or famille verte, noire, or jaune). Like Bencharong, wucai was also glazed, double fired, and decorated with three-to-eight polychrome enamels.

The primary differences between domestic wuai and Bencharong are Bencharong’s different colour palette (particularly turquoise), which catered to Thai tastes, its lack of underglaze blue, and its enamel, which was more thickly applied.Bencharong enamels also cover the entire surface of the body, displaying no white porcelain, unlike many of their domestic Chinese counterparts.

Bencharong’s production history is difficult to reconstruct, as no commission records remain. However, recent excavations at Jingdezhen have revealed decorated Bencharong sherds, suggesting that Bencharong wares were both fired and decorated at Jingdezhen, during a period when some export wares were only fired at Jingdezhen and decorated after export.

Dating and Uses

One useful technique to date Bencharong objects is by palette. Objects such as the one below (currently on display at the Humboldt Forum in Berlin) can be dated to the eighteenth century because nineteenth- century pieces often heavily feature pink or gold, a technique called Lai Nam Thong.

This piece also minimizes use of purple and blue, meaning that it was unlikely produced after 1800. When examining an object, don’t forget to examine the interior, which can provide useful clues! For example, turquoise interiors are only found in earlier Bencharong wares. Precise dating is typically unreliable, as Bencharong styles did not always align with Thai reigns.

Bencharong was often used as a dining ware, and therefore often came in matching sets.

Early Bencharong court wares also sometimes served as containers for cosmetics or medicine.

Initially, Bencharong was only produced for the Thai court, but high nineteenth-century demand necessitated expanded production for Thai nobility and merchants.

In the nineteenth century, King Rama II so admired Bencharong that he attempted to produce copies himself, as he was an amateur artist!

Visual Characteristics

Bencharong decorations often reflect traditional artistic tastes across Thai media. Bencharong’s most common motifs include geometric patterns, Buddhist or Hindu iconography, mythic or literary creatures, and Thai flora and fauna.

The entire surface of the Buddhist lidded bowl at the Humboldt Forum is covered with polychrome enamels in red, navy, turquoise, white, yellow, and green, with floral bands and motifs surrounding Buddhist figures. These bands typically frame primary motifs and are either plain or subtly decorated.

The various floral patterns, particularly the yellow stem pattern at the top of the bowl, are commonly found in Buddhist Bencharong wares. The red band near the bottom of the bowl and repeated throughout the lid is a lai kruay cherng pattern (a funnel motif) depicting repeating tri-lobed flowers.

Given Buddhism’s predominance in Thailand, many Bencharong wares depict scenes specific to Thai Theravada Buddhism. This scene takes place in the Himaphan forest, a lower Buddhist heaven. At the center of the primary scene sits a thephanom on a red medallion shaped like a lotus petal, with his hands in anjali mudra.

The thephanom is a minor celestial being in Thai Theravada Buddhism, often mistaken by contemporary viewers for a Buddha. He wears jewellery and an ornate Thai headdress.

Although he is featured alone here, he is often surrounded by norasinghs, Thai Buddhist semi-deities who flank the thephanom and can be identified by their human upper body and lion/ deer mixture lower body.

Collecting Bencharong

Bencharong remains a popular form in museums and in private collections throughout the world, with a demand for a contemporary reproduction market in Thailand. Taking your Bencharong wares to a valuer may help you determine whether your objects are antiques or are contemporary reproductions.

Bencharong reveals a rich history of trade, religious activity at Thailand’s royal court, and upper-class desires to emulate royal tastes.

Further academic examination of the history of Bencharong may result in a better understanding of China’s historical relationship with Thailand, religious and secular imagery in Early-Bangkok Period art, merchant trade culture, and the upper class’ relationship with the royal Thai court.

Meanwhile, there is plenty Bencharong for us to enjoy in public collections, such as the Humboldt Forum,
the V&A, and the British Museum!

Caring for Ceramics

Posted on May 23, 2023September 9, 2024 by Mark Longley

Mark Longley gives his best advice for caring for ceramics:

Tips on Handling and Examination

Ideally, ceramics should be handled as little as possible and with great care, never picking pieces up by handles or rims, and being aware of loose parts like lids. Wear thin nitrile gloves when handling unglazed wares or, especially if the glaze is flaking. If you are carrying items be sure to use both hands to cradle objects. Always handle pieces over a soft cloth or towel.
Ideally one should have a knowledge of those pieces that are restored or damaged. Examine pieces for losses to the rims, applied decoration, or projecting parts of a piece. Hairline cracks and firing faults are usually noticeable. If you are unsure, always contact a professional fine art surveyor.
Restoration may involve an element of over-painting and damage. This paint will be softer than the hard glaze and can be felt with a soft application of a coin or metal point. Some people might use their teeth on a clean area of repair as this method, while not professionally used or advisable due to increased sensitivity. Older repairs are often apparent because old paint yellows with age. Examine pieces under a strong light for repairs. Use a UV light or a UV torch in a dark room for a more thorough examination of potential restoration. Repairs and natural faults both shine with a strong white light.

Tips on Display and Storage

Never crowd shelves or display cabinets, and place smaller items at the front. Using a display cabinet will reduce the risk of dust and grime attaching itself to your collection and will be protective.
Resist the temptation to stack too many plates in a pile. The resulting weight can easily lead to accidents. Use plate stands or specially designed stands for display.
Take care when hanging plates, that you use the correct size devices otherwise you may put a considerable strain on the plate. Do not hang plates with hairline cracks.
Remove old style plate hangers that have springs to tension the attachment hooks. Replace those with wire hangers. Investigate adhesive hanging devices but be aware that this adhesive might affect certain surfaces.
Store ceramics by wrapping in acid-free tissue paper and bubble wrap and packing into a strong plastic crate.

Tips on Cleaning

Occasionally it may be desirable to wash objects, but usually a careful dust with a soft duster or hogs hair brush should be enough.
Washing may be best done by using swabs of cotton wool or cotton buds, rather than immersing the object in water. A soft toothbrush could be of assistance. Avoid extremely hot water. The addition of a little detergent may help. Never attempt to use bleach to remove stains.
Not all ceramics have a hard glaze. Great care needs to be taken with certain kinds of ceramics where these are porous or made of soft-paste, Parian, or biscuit ware, and never immerse anything which has gold decoration which may be unstable. Some decoration may be applied by a transfer technique, commonly found in antique dinner services, so be aware of rubbing surfaces whilst cleaning or handling.
Keep broken or damaged ceramics carefully until you can get the piece to a professional restorer.

To find out more about our ceramics valuation service, contact us here!

Made in China, a Brief Guide to the Meaning of Chinese Porcelain Marks

Posted on October 9, 2020October 21, 2024 by Mark Longley

As a valuer of Chinese and European ceramics, one of the main actions in assessing an item is to look at the base of an object as it can tell a thousand stories.

Mostly, this simple action will yield information, although on the rare occasion it does not, you might find the ashes of your client’s beloved relative at your feet, or indeed the corpse of a dead mouse. While I have not had the ashes of any deceased individual at my feet, passing meetings with mummified mice are a hazard of the job to which I can relate to in the hunt for an item’s history and authenticity.

The marks on Chinese porcelain wares are generally found on the base of the pot and are made up of four or six characters or a stylised seal mark, made of geometric designs that mirror the handwritten characters.

The marks will generally refer to an Emperor’s reign and confusingly are not a real indication of the age of the piece. If the age of the porcelain is considered to be of the same date as the mark in question, it is commonly described as being “of mark and period.” However, Chinese potters did mark porcelain with earlier reign marks to the date of the manufacture as a mark of respect to earlier wares and Emperors.

This can cause some confusion with dating Chinese porcelain!

Only expertise and experience can assess age, although sometimes an invasive test, such as a thermoluminescence test, might assist the valuer. Invasive tests are far from ideal as they do require a sample to be removed from a pot. Commonly, ancient Chinese terracotta tomb figures are sold on the marketplace with these tests and accompanying certificates. Oxford is currently one of the centres for issuing these certificates in the UK.

The translation of the marks one finds on Chinese porcelains are well documented in books including Gerald Davison’s excellent, “The Handbook of Marks on Chinese Ceramics”, which includes the main reign marks for the Ming and Qing dynasty emperors and other less commonly documented marks.

With practise, comparing and reading both written and seal marks on Chinese porcelain becomes easier, especially with the correct textbooks by your side. However, with a little more knowledge of written Chinese and the method of writing Chinese characters, this can be made easier and more satisfying to understand.

Each character would have been applied with a brush; the shapes made by varying the amount of pressure applied to the brush as the stroke is made. This is also relevant to forming Chinese characters in calligraphy. Each character would have been made by performing a varied number of strokes, from three to fourteen in the characters below. Understanding the order in which the strokes are written (generally left to right), their proportion and the formation of the character can help one to appreciate the character more precisely, and if one could understand the components of each character more fully, one would be able to consult a Chinese dictionary to find the meaning. Mostly marks used on Chinese porcelain appear as commonly used words in today’s modern Chinese language. For example, the character for year has not changed in hundreds of years, and can be found on Ming porcelain, and in an e mail today.

The first mark below is a Ming blue and white porcelain bowl that sold for $7,470,000 (£733,927) at Christie’s Hong Kong in May 2013 and below that, a pair of Yongzheng doucai conical Dragon bowls and covers, that sold for £212,000 at Christie’s London in November 2019.

The mark below shows from the top right down to left down, the characters for Da Ming Xuan, De Nian li, which translates as Great Ming Xuan De Year produced (in) or effectively, “this piece was produced in the reign of the Ming Emperor Xuan De.”

Ming porcelain mark. Image courtesy of Christie’s

The mark below shows from top right down and across to the left, the characters Da Qing Yong Zheng Nian li, with translates as Great Qing Yong Zheng Year produced (in), or effectively, “this piece was produced in the reign of the Qing Emperor Yong Zheng.”

Yongzheng porcelain mark . Image courtesy of Christie’s

The History of Collecting Oriental Works of Art

Posted on July 23, 2019August 14, 2024 by Andrew Parker

Vase, made during the reign of the Emperor Qianlong. £53.1 million

In Europe the collecting of Oriental works of art goes back to the end of the 15th Century when Portuguese traders began to import Chinese porcelain and this fashion for exotic items from the Far East soon swept the whole of Europe with many countries vying to control the market.

Such was the popularity and value of Chinese porcelain that in 1717 Augustus the Strong of Saxony swapped 151 pieces of Chinese porcelain for 600 of the King of Prussia’s finest soldiers.

Other materials were also highly sought after by the Europeans including silk, lacquer and Jade.

In the middle of the 17th century the civil war in China led to a shortage of Chinese goods and so the Western traders approached the Japanese to produce similar items, whilst back in Europe many people were trying to produce wares in the style of the Chinese.

Until fairly recently the market in the West has been dominated by Europeans and North Americans, though the Japanese, who had also collected Chinese porcelain for over 1,000 years, were also buyers.

Recent Trends
In the 21st century the increasing wealth of a great many Chinese nationals has led them to try and buy back their heritage.

The best prices are paid for items made the for the domestic market, particularly those made for the Imperial Court, whilst pieces made for export to the West are largely looked down upon as being inferior.

Imperial porcelain from the 18th century is especially sought after for its high quality, which was often dismissed by Western collectors as lacking the soul and character of Ming and earlier wares.

The finest of these 18th century pieces make many millions of pounds, most famously the vase, made during the reign of the Emperor Qianlong, who ruled China from 1736 to 1795, which sold at a small auction in the Home Counties for £53.1 million.

In recent years the Chinese market has become much more selective as knowledge has increased amongst the dealers and collectors in mainland China, where a few years ago Chinese pieces were bought in an almost indiscriminate manner there is now a greater appreciation of the range of Chinese artefacts and their relative quality.

The high prices and subsequent publicity achieved by Chinese piece brought a considerable number of items onto the market and so the prices for more common pieces fell.

Another result of the high prices being paid for Chinese pieces has been that extremely good copies are now being made which has undermined certain sections of the market and means that provenance has now become of even greater importance than previously, with collectors looking for evidence that a piece has a confirmed history.

Because of strict limitations on the export of cultural items from China, once a piece has been bought and taken to China it can no longer leave the country creating a diminishing supply of good quality pieces in the West, one effect of this has been to broaden the range of pieces collected, pushing up the prices for Ming and earlier pieces, the increase in knowledge of Chinese collectors has also enabled this to happen.

1100 AD porcelain brush washer. £30 million

Chinese porcelain plate, Qianlong period (1736-1795) £40 million

Recently a porcelain brush washer from the Imperial Ru kiln, made around 1100 AD, 13cm diameter with a pale blue/green glaze and typical finely controlled cracking to the glaze, sold in Hong Kong for 294,287,500 HKD, around £30 million.

The entry of the Chinese collectors into the market has pushed many of the finest pieces out of the reach of Western Collectors, though there are still areas that are affordable and have not yet been greatly affected by recent events, Chinese export porcelain from the 18th century is still remarkably inexpensive with many attractive piece passing through UK auctions and fairs on a daily basis.

Values for attractive pieces often being measured in the tens and hundreds of pounds rather than the many thousands and even millions, it is possible to buy individual plates from the 18th century in good condition for less than £50, fine export examples with the most attractive and rarest decoration rarely cost more than a couple of thousand leaving a broad and interesting collecting area that is still surprisingly affordable.

Chinese porcelain plate, Qianlong period (1736-1795) £40 million

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