Vase

John Bennett was not only a leading ceramicist in the Aesthetic Movement style but a social reformer as well. With the support of his employer Henry Doulton, he established the Faience Department within Doulton Pottery to teach women china painting. This allowed women to gain a degree of economic independence in an era when they could not vote or readily own property.

The decoration on Bennett’s English pottery is tightly rendered. In the New York piece seen here his style became freer and impressionistic in response to the seemingly endless possibilities of the New World.