Thomas Minton (1765 - 1836) established his pottery at Stoke-on-Trent, styled as Thomas Minton & Sons, in 1793, while in his late twenties, having previously been apprenticed and then worked as an engraver at the Caughley works, where he is credited with the design of the "Willow" and "Blue Dragon" patterns.
After initially making blue printed earthenware and then soft paste porcelain, in the 1820s the company commenced producing bone china, and this became its principal activity.
Thomas Minton died in 1836 and the business was taken over by his son Herbert Minton, and by this time had established a reputation for wares of exceptional quality. The name of the company was changed to Minton & Co.
Many of their designs were classically based and either copied from Sevres designs, or finished from blanks supplied by Sevres.
Production of parian ware figures, a white unglazed statuary porcelain resembling marble, commenced about
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1841, and some of the figures were based on sculptures by John Bell, and American Hiram Powers. Sales of parian figures were boosted by special orders from the Art Union of London, and other art unions where subscribers paid an annual fee, and in return participated in a ballot to receive a copy of an art work.
Herbert Minton died in 1848 and control of the company passed to his nephew, Colin Minton Campbell.
The company's high reputation enabled it to secure the services of a team of talented artists and designers, including some from France. The close relationship with Sevres continued when in 1849, Leon Arnoux a ceramicist from Sevres was appointed Art Director at Minton. He was responsible for the for the introduction of Minton's range of majolica which was one of the successes of the Great Exhibition of 1851.
Others recruited included Henry Mitchell, a talented painter of animal themes; Richard Pilsbury, a leading floral artists; Anton Boullemier who excelled in portraiture and allegorical compositions; William Mussill, a French-trained artist; Herbert Wilson Foster who specialised in portraiture, bird and animal subjects.
Another was Marc-Louis Solon, a French artist who moved from France to Stoke-on-Trent in 1870 and introduced pate-sur-pate, first used by Sevres, which is a method of building up low relief decoration by applying successive coats of clay slip or by modelling.
Solon's son Marc-Louis Solon a made major contribution to Art Nouveau ceramics with a fine range of slip-trailed majolica ware, while his son, Leon Solon produced designed that were strongly influenced by the Viennese Secessionist art movement. The range included tableware, as well as vases of many shapes.
The Minton factory in the centre of Stoke was rebuilt and modernised after the World War II.
During the rationalisation of the British pottery industry in the mid 20th century, Minton merged with Royal Doulton (in 1968), and in turn, Royal Doulton was taken over by the Waterford Wedgwood group in January 2005, and the group was renamed WWRD Holdings Ltd. (Waterford Wedgwood Royal Doulton).
WWRD Holdings Ltd. Was placed into receivership in 2009 due to being unable to service its extensive debt, and parts of the company were purchased by a New York private equity investor, KPS Capital Partners.
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