A summary by Leonard Griffin

The appearance on eBay of a 565 vase had me running to my ‘A to Z’ of patterns. It looked like Elizabethan Cottage^* but I realised it was rather different. Although the red roof building and timber framed front was similar the rest of the pattern was not.

Elizabethan Cottage is in a garden full of trees in two styles, Poplars and distinctive cloud shaped ones; these are in yellows, greens and a blue. There are two red tulips by the cottage, and the foreground is 'etched'. 

In contrast the new pattern has a garden far more resembling the 1937 Chalet pattern. A central path is bordered by colouful flowers and leads up to the cottage which has smoke rising from the chimney. There are only a few trees and these are in just brown and green; two by the cottage resemble those from Poplar and there are two round trees on straight trunks on the reverse. A tall orange flowering plant is similar to that on Orange Roof Cottage. Overall it is a totally different pattern.

I started naming and cataloguing Clarice Cliff patterns in 1982 and finding this new one 24 years later was exciting. The image is much simpler than Elizabethan Cottage which dates to 1937, so working on the basis it is later it must be one of the last, if not the very last cottage landscape Clarice designed before the war. I thought it was fitting to name it after the house she moved in to in 1940 which actually resembles the scene, so we are calling it:-

Chetwynd

Many years ago I said ‘Rarity does not always equal desirability’ so with no record of a price for such as piece it is anyones guess what this intriguing vase will sell for. And it is a vase that tells an important part of the later Clarice Cliff story.

• Thanks to eBay seller rickrick49 for use of their images
• Please CLICK HERE to view the vase for sale on eBaY

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