Tlaquepaque Tonala Jug, Tonalá, Jalisco, Mexico, C1940

Original Tamegroute eathernware pitcher with vivid iconic deep green glaze specific to this small town on the edge of the Sahara. This version showing the qualities of earlier pieces...

Oil on canvas, Villa Albrizzi - Veneto, 1963 Teddy Millington-Drake (1932-1994) was a nomad, linguist, bon viveur, aesthete and master gardener, but above all an artist. Discharged from service and in part inspired by his sister's anecdotes of her travels abroad, Millington-Drake embarked on a painting tour that took him to Lebanon, Iran, Iraq and Syria. He then rented a house, the Villa Albrizzi at Este, Veneto in Italy, and became a more frequent painter, particularly now of abstract murals. He befriended Freya Stark, a writer and traveler who lived nearby, and in Venice he became friends with Daisy Fellowes, Peggy Guggenheim, Barbara Hutton and Elsa Maxwell. In Este, he painted continually and more boldly, turning his hand to abstract murals. He later transformed a neglected Tuscan farmhouse in the village of Poggio which was co-decorated by his friend the designer John Stefanidis. There were vine-hung terraces and a skillfully landscaped garden. A swimming-pool was built on a shelf cut into the hillside, so that you felt yourself gliding towards the horizon, suspended in space as you swam. There Millington-Drake worked passionately at all forms of painting. There are haunting large abstracts inspired by Jung, hard-edged acrylic wave paintings and some intriguing semi-calligraphic works on paper based on phrases taken from the works of poets such as Cavafy, Mandelstam and Elizabeth Bishop...

Beautiful German faience jug from one of the Northern German factories.

The large underglaze blue and white pearlware jug is decorated with flowers on one side and a simple modernistic stylized drape design on the other.