Bronze Age Gold from Wales

Plate, cream-coloured earthenware with clear glaze, foot ring and cushion-moulded profile, plain rim; decorated with evenly-spaced stylised clover leaves hand-painted overglaze in black and green enamels surrounded by free-form dots and loops, between these are groups of five or six short parallel, horizontal brushstroke lines, hand-painted overglaze in black, around the rim is a transfer-printed band of interlaced 'S' shapes forming a schematic rope pattern.

This is one of at least nine known designs produced by Sutherland for the Modern Art for the Table project, which culminated in an influential exhibition at Harrods in 1934. The project was an attempt to improve the quality of British ceramic design by employing contemporary artists. It was led by Thomas Acland Fennemore, Art Director of E Brain & Company (Foley China), together with Sutherland himself and the designer Milner Gray, who invited leading artists of the day to contribute designs to be made in bone china by Foley and in earthenware by Wilkinson's. The artists involved included Laura Knight, Paul Nash, Ben Nicholson and Frank Brangwyn.