- Object name(s):
- Button mould
- Brief description:
- Plaster button mould in two pieces.
- Collection:
- Victoria and Albert Museum
- Associated concept:
- Ceramics
- Associated concept:
- Tools & Equipment
- Credit line:
- Transferred from the Potteries Museum & Art Gallery, Stoke-on-Trent
- Current reproduction location:
- https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2011ER1983/full/!100,100/0/default.jpg
- Location type:
- Thumbnail
- Inscription content:
- 'LRM 114'
- Inscription interpretation:
- Numbering system used by the Potteries Museum, Stoke-on-Trent, denoting 'Lucie Rie mould' number.
- Inscription content:
- 'shield'
- Inscription interpretation:
- Description used by Lucie Rie on the mould
- Material:
- plaster
- Object history note:
- From the studio of the potter Lucie Rie (1902-95), formerly at her home, 18 Albion Mews, Paddington, London between 1938 and 1995. Following her death, her studio contents were preserved by her executors, and title was transferred by her beneficiaries, Mr Max and Mrs Yvonne Mayer, to the Potteries Museum & Art Gallery, Stoke-on-Trent. A number of items were transferred from the Potteries Museum to this Museum for long term display in gallery 143 during redevelopment of the ceramics galleries in 2009.
- Object history note:
- In late 1939, soon after Lucie Rie had settled in England, an emigre friend, Fritz Lampl (1892-1955), suggested that she should help him in his workshop, pressing glass buttons for women's clothes. Lampl, a poet, had founded the Bimini company in Vienna to produce stylish lampworked glass figures. Bimini had also been an outlet for Rie's pots. Lampl's Soho button-making business, Orplid, was destroyed by a bomb in 1941 but he set up a new workshop in Sussex Gardens. Lampl's partner, a Mr. Schenkel, encouraged Rie to combine button-making with ceramics and produce ceramic buttons for haute couture. Another young Austrian, Rudi Neufeldt, made moulds and pressings for Rie's approval. Soon after work began, the Government closed Rie's 'button factory' as being a non-essential business for wartime. Rie re-opened her studio in 1945 and in 1946 Hans Coper joined her to make buttons as well as pots. Rie also produced earrings and necklaces.
- Object name:
- Button mould
- Object number:
- C.116:1, 2-2009
- Object production date:
- ca. 1941-1947
- Date - association:
- made
- Date - earliest / single:
- 1936-01-01
- Date - latest:
- 1947-12-31
- Object production note:
- Present in the studio of Lucie Rie at the time of her death in 1995.
- Object production person:
- Rie, Lucie
- Person's association:
- artist
- Object production place:
- London
- Place association:
- made
- Physical description:
- Plaster button mould in two pieces.
- Reproduction number:
- 2011ER1983
- Reproduction number:
- 2009CP8748
- Reproduction number:
- 2009CP8741
- Reproduction number:
- 2009CP8739
- Responsible department/section:
- CER
- Technique:
- Plaster
- Text reason:
- Collections online record
- Text:
- The renowned studio potter, Lucie Rie (1902-95), emigrated from Austria to England before the Second World War. As a member of Vienna's Jewish community, she fled the advance of Nazism in 1938. Arriving in London, she established a pottery studio on the ground floor of her home,18 Albion Mews, Paddington. After her death in 1995, the contents of her studio were preserved and moved to the Potteries Museum & Art Gallery, Stoke-on-Trent. A selection of items from one corner of Rie's studio were redisplayed in gallery 143 of the V&A in 2009 as part of the redevelopment of the ceramics galleries. The exact positioning of these items was replicated as far as possible from old photographs in order to evoke Rie's working conditions and show some of the equipment and materials she used to produce her pots and buttons.
- Text reason:
- Summary description
- User's reference:
- Reference:
- Birks, Tony. Lucie Rie. London : Alphabooks, 1987. ISBN 0906670462.
- User's reference:
- Reference:
- Cooper, Emmanuel, ed. Lucie Rie : the life and work of Lucie Rie 1902-1995. London : Ceramic Review Publishing Ltd., 2002. ISBN 4860201221.
- User's reference:
- Reference:
- Coatts, Margot, ed. Lucie Rie and Hans Coper - Potters in Parallel. London : Herbert Press/Barbican Art Gallery, 1997. ISBN 0713646977.
Persistent shareable link for this record: https://museumdata.uk/objects/d84e6e74-332e-3c6e-8eb2-b5ea5ef3439a
Use licence for this record: CC BY-NC
Attribution for this record: https://museumdata.uk/objects/d84e6e74-332e-3c6e-8eb2-b5ea5ef3439a, Victoria and Albert Museum, CC BY-NC
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