Ha 244 collecting

H&A Collecting

Flower girl A gift from a friend kick-started Jivan Astfalck’s obsession for china flower brooches Feature & styling rosanna morris Photographs Sarah Cuttle

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estled deep in a drawer in the studio of a house in north-west London is a microcosm of an English cottage garden.

Roses bloom in a riot of yellows and pinks, there’s a spray of forget-me-nots and primroses here, profusions of daffodils, pansies, anemones, cowslips and peonies there. Fragile and delicate, their petals were once lumps of clay, but they’ve been beautifully moulded by hand and fired in a kiln, never to wilt. These pretty bone china flower brooches belong to Jivan Astfalck, a professor at the Birmingham Institute of Art and Design. Her collection numbers about 250 now – her latest acquisition added only a week ago.

‘My friend Susan gave me the first brooch, a cluster of yellow flowers, about five years ago,’ says Jivan. ‘It had belonged to her grandmother.

I’d never seen anything like it before. As I teach jewellery art and design, the history and wearability of jewellery is of great interest to me, so she thought it was appropriate.’

Jivan instantly fell in love with the brooch, but it didn’t immediately cultivate a passion for collecting. Not, that is, until two weeks later when, by pure chance, she came across another eight brooches while browsing stalls in London’s Portobello Market. Among them was a large daffodil brooch – still her favourite piece.

‘That was it. I then had a hunger for more,’ she enthuses. ‘I immediately loved them because they were completely and utterly out of fashion. I see a lot of jewellery, of all cultures and ages, but I’d never seen anything like them before – and being German-born, I found them so very English.’

And English they are. Flower-making was a speciality of the Potteries and dates back to the facing page Jivan Astfalck has a 250-strong collection of bone china flower brooches right The brooches, which date from the 1930s to the 1950s, come in all shapes, sizes and varieties of flower may 2013 H&A 109

H&A Collecting

‘Perhaps people who couldn’t afford diamonds, precious stones and metals would have bought them, as china would have been a bit more affordable’ 1740s, but it really took off when Josiah Spode II developed a recipe for bone china c1797. A form of hard paste made of clay (25 per cent), Cornish stone (25 per cent) and cattle-bone ash (50 per cent), it was beautiful when fired and could be used to produce delicate-looking but incredibly strong petals, hand-painted with brilliant colours and used mostly for decorating bowls.

Rita’s story A DOZEN ROSES

IN FULL BLOOM

clockwise from above Most brooches are flowers traditionally found in an English cottage garden, but Jivan sometimes finds exotic-looking orchids; roses are one of the most common designs; a profusion of brooches; the large daffodil is Jivan’s favourite

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Jewellery featuring such blooms may have been worn in Victorian times but the brooches were most popular in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s – made by potteries such as Royal Doulton, Aynsley, Staffordshire and Coalport. While brooches are no longer made today, flowers are still produced at Aynsley, which makes a range of ‘florals’ – bowls containing posies of china flowers.

Though Jivan knew little of this, the collecting bug had bitten and she took to the internet, keen to hunt down more. One by one, she found brooches in the UK and the US for one or two pounds apiece and within months, she’d gathered dozens. ‘They were cheap, as no one wanted them,’ she explains. ‘I don’t think I’m the only one collecting them now, though, as prices have gone up four-fold.’

Rather than as a collector, Jivan sees herself as a guardian, safekeeping what is now a dying art.

She uses her brooches to teach her students about jewellery design – she’s put on an exhibition at the Institute and has even tried her hand at making modern versions. ‘The flower in jewellery is so symbolic,’ she says. ‘We study sentimentality, romanticism and the anthropological element of jewellery. My students need to get their heads around the fact that their professor collects these nostalgic things, though. My brooches don’t really fit into their narrow idea of design.’

Although she knows little about the history of the brooches, Jivan loves to muse over who

above It’s hard to imagine that the delicate petals were once lumps of clay above right Jivan wears her brooches in a contemporary-looking cluster

would have worn them. ‘Perhaps people who couldn’t afford diamonds, precious stones and metals would have bought them, as china would have been a bit more affordable,’ she reasons. ‘I think women would have worn them on their best dress or maybe a good coat for going to church. The brooches must have made the perfect gift for Mother’s Day. I can imagine the ladies of the village wearing them.’

Jivan – and many of her colleagues, as it turns out – don’t reserve the brooches for Sunday best, however. They’ll walk around campus with the flowers adorning their lapels. Jivan prefers to wear hers as a cluster. ‘When they are bunched, they look very contemporary,’ she says. ‘If you have one brooch on a jumper or jacket, I think it looks a bit Margaret Thatcher. I’m not that sort of person at all.’

Rita Floyd is one of the last flower girls to work in the Potteries. She now gives flower-making demonstrations at Gladstone Pottery Museum (01782 237777; stokemuseums.org.uk/gpm), which sells those that she and others make in its shop.

‘I’ve been a flower maker since I was 15,’ she says. ‘I started in 1972 when I left school. My aunties and great aunties were flower makers and I used to sit with my Aunt Betty as she made them at home. This area of Stokeon-Trent, Longton, was known for its flower-making. I worked in a factory called Royal Adderley Floral, and then for Coalport.

‘It took a long time to learn how to make the flowers. First, we were shown how to make roses, carnations and anemones, then we went on to primroses, lilies, daisies, lady’s smock, narcissus and other varieties.

I was taught by a lady called Mrs Addy Hancock, who would come around and check on us. I wasn’t allowed to actually put a flower together until after about two weeks. I just had to sit making petals and the little twirly middles. It took me three months to learn how to make a complete flower but after that, when I was on piece work, I could produce one eight-petal rose a minute. You had to be quick, as you were paid by the dozen.

‘When I had a baby in 1989, I started hand-making flowers for factories at home. Clay would be delivered to my door and I’d pop into the factory to pick up a list of the various types of flower I had to make. I then air-dried them before they were collected and taken to the factory for firing.

‘Every flower maker can tell their own work. We made them for ornamental bowls and for jewellery, which was very popular. I can remember my mum, nan and great aunties wearing flower brooches.

As well as brooches, there were earrings, scarf pins and necklaces.’

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