Scottish Ceramics

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Glasgow Museums has a collection of approximately 2,000 Scottish ceramics, which date from 1750 to 1990.

This collection comprises domestic tableware, utensils, tea services, ornaments, decorative items, sanitary ware, commemorative pieces and ceramic shards. The collection spans the main period of Scottish ceramic manufacture, and has an emphasis on Glasgow and the west of Scotland. The objects range from crude earthenwares produced in small rural potteries to tin-glazed earthenware and transfer-printed porcelains from major manufacturers. They represent a great variety of the techniques employed by Scottish artisans and manufacturers. There are examples from important Glasgow potteries, including the Delftfield Company, which opened in 1748 and was the first commercial pottery in Scotland, the Glasgow Pottery of JMP Bell & Co., and Govancroft, Glasgow’s last pottery, which closed in 1976.

Craft and studio ceramics include late 19th- and early 20th-century hand-painted wares, among them work from Wemyss, Bough, ‘the Glasgow Girls’, Allander Pottery, David Cohen and David Lee.