Vyse Cat
The favoured animals, of which Vyse never seemed to tire of sketching were the family pet cats George and Terence. Describing an occasion in which these remarkable animals featured, Nell Vyse writes to their close friend Sydney Greenslade.
We had a quiet time in Deal, interspersed with various children that Tony and Elizabeth collected! We took George on the pier and he eagerly superintended the fishing. He likes new laid fish and I am sorry to say, is partial to them alive! He became very popular and everyone knew him. The other little flibbertigibbet ‘Terence’ has not yet been trained to come out on a lead and has to be ignominiously taken through the streets in a basket, instead of proceeding under his own steam. The fishing was
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This monochrome picture denied the readers the pleasure of seeing the extraordinary glaze effects achieved by the Vyses, representing tabby fur (page 1, & Fig 117). For a studio potter in the 1930s, to achieve this type of glaze effect was doubtless a tour de force, which in the process of simulating the tabby fur, an iron-rich glaze coats the biscuit-fired model, which through the firing process transmutes into a deep mirror-black. A solution of Gum Arabic, used for tracing the dark outlines of the fur applied to the model’s glassy surface and left to dry. Vyse traced the ‘Tabby’s’ lighter markings using a brush dipped in a cream coloured ash-glaze. With a sharp metal tool, he etched the finer ‘tabby’ design revealing the nuances of the fur, in the underlying black glaze, to create the realistic ‘tabby’ effect. However, expert the application of decoration, the final and crucial stage is always subject to the firing technique. During the firing, both dark and light glazes liquefy, and the outer creamy glaze sinking into the rich, black glaze beneath. This additionally produces the slight blurring at the edges of the cream glaze, thus creating the realistic effects of the animal’s fur. Charles and Nell Vyse used similar techniques in the decoration of high-fired stoneware vessels to obtain the capricious ornamentation on their Temmoku type, glazed