Posted 3 years ago
EWC
(11 items)
Set piece / previous post
Barbican side sink piece .
I’m believing this could be of rare items in perfect condition ? A Barbican piece?
Thank you again for everyone’s comments and referrals
Matching Inca Gold label toilet | ||
| Architectural Antiques34 of 157 |  |  |
Are you located in Australia? As Fowler Ware was an Australian manufacturer of ceramics, mostly of a utilitarian type such as bathroom fittings & kitchenware.
Maybe they were manufacturing these bathroom pieces under license in Australia?
Yes I live in Australia , ok great , thank you for that information.
I’d really like to see a profile picture of the entire item. Also picture of top of lid….is it the type with a button on lid to flush it?
EWC, Woo hoo!
Thanks for the new, related post. :-)
Unfortunately, I still haven't been able to run down that distinctive makers mark with the crown surrounded by the letters M, W, S, D, and B. :-(
As IronLace points out, Fowler Ware might well have had some kind of licensing deal to make/market the Barbican Basin.
Certainly, it could explain the name "Inca Gold," which I haven't been able to find in other Barbican Basin sources on the Internet.
Some detailed history about Fowler Ware:
https://learnantiques.com.au/fowler-potteries-enduring-the-times/
(That tidbit about the Fowler founder fibbing about his age to qualify for assistance with transportation expenses reminds me of the story writer Gore Vidal liked to tell about his friend Tennessee Williams. Williams had fibbed about his age in order to qualify for some kind of writing contest, and many years later when Vidal teased Williams about the apparent age discrepancy in his resume, Williams quipped, "I refuse to count as part of my life the four years I spent working in a shoe factory.")
Here's an eBay listing for a new old stock Fowler Ware Inca Gold toilet seat:
*snip*
Condition: Brand New: A brand-new, unused, unopened, undamaged item in its original packaging (where packaging is applicable).
Colour: Inca Gold
Features: Includes Fittings
Material: Plastic
MPN: Does Not Apply
Type: Toilet Seat
Brand: Fowler Ware
UPC: Does not apply
*snip*
https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/183324686762
That Thrifty Bathrooms business is still around:
https://thriftybathrooms.com.au/about/
Here is the floor plan for type 21 and type 20 flats in the Barbican from the original brochure (you can well see the need for a shallow, wall-mounted basin in the small WC room:
http://www.barbicanliving.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/20.jpg
http://www.barbicanliving.co.uk/plans/explanation-of-flat-types/type-20/
Thank you keramikos
For all those links , it’s been great to see the history. I’m still trying to find info on the letter logo mark with the British Crown - it reminds me of similar water marks I have on a very old stamp collection.
I have a couple of Fowler Ware mixing bowls from the 1950s era in green, blue, & maroon...& in my late mother's collection of ceramic wall vases, there was a pair of light blue Fowler wall pocket vases which I sold a couple of years back. I think the washbasin in my former (mid - 196os era) home's bathroom was one of their products as well...light green & rather small.
EWC, You're welcome. :-)
I still haven't been able to find that makers mark myself.
FYI, that anecdote about Gore Vidal and Tennessee Williams was imperfectly remembered by me. I had to chase it down in hard copy, because I couldn't find a free soft copy online. It was from a 1985 essay by Vidal called, "Tennessee Williams: Someone to Laugh at the Squares With":
*snip*
Thirty-seven years ago, in March 1948, Tennessee Williams and I celebrated his thirty-seventh birthday in Rome, except that he said that it was his thirty-fourth birthday. Years later, when confronted with fact that he had been born in 1911 not 1914, he said serenely, "I do not choose to count as part of my life the three years that I spent working for a shoe company." Actually, he spent ten months, not three years, in the shoe company, and the reason that he had changed his birth date was to qualify for a play contest open to those twenty-five or under. No matter. I thought him very old in 1948. But I was twenty-two in the spring of annus mirabilis when my novel The City and the Pillar was a best seller (Mr. Spoto thinks the book was published later) and his play Streetcar Named Desire, was taking the world by storm, as it still does.
*snip*
Not that this really has anything to do with porcelain sanitary ware, but I wouldn't want Vidal to come back and haunt me for misquoting him. };-)