Tall bird
Medium
Stoneware; wood
Dimensions
Overall (confirmed, on socle): 20 1/4 × 8 1/4 × 9 7/8 in., 15 lb. [body (a) 11 lb., head (b) 4 lb.] (51.4 × 21 × 25.1 cm, 6.8 kg)
Classification
Ceramics-Pottery
Culture
British, Southall, London
Department
European Sculpture and Decorative Arts
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Robert A. Ellison Jr. Collection, Gift of Robert A. Ellison Jr., 2013
Accession Number
2013.239.6a, b
Tags
Art Historical Context
Step into the whimsical world of late Victorian ceramics with *Tall Bird* (1896), a striking stoneware sculpture crafted by the British firm R. W. Martin and Brothers in Southall, London. Standing an impressive 20¼ inches tall on its socle, this piece combines durable stoneware—fired at high temperatures for a non-porous, robust body—with wooden elements, creating a hybrid form that bridges pottery and sculpture. The artwork's two-part construction (body and detachable head, weighing 11 and 4 pounds respectively) suggests functionality, perhaps as a decorative vessel or tobacco jar, common in ...
About the Artist
R. W. Martin and Brothers · 1873–1915
R. W. Martin and Brothers, often known simply as the Martin Brothers pottery, was a pioneering British studio founded in 1873 by sculptor Robert Wallace Martin (1843–1923) in Fulham, London, alongside his brothers Charles Douglas Martin (1846–1910), Walter Fraser Martin (1857–1912), and Edwin Bruce Martin (1860–1915). The firm relocated to a former soap factory on Havelock Road in Southall, Middle...