VTG Signed Joan DeBethel Ceramic Cat 1986 Sossex #382 Rye Pottery Hand Painted

Vintage Signed Joan De Bethel Ceramic Cat 1986 Sossex #382 Rye Pottery Hand Painted & Marine Varnished Joan and David De Bethel started making papier maché cats & bears in 1960. They were intricately made & quite expensive - each piece took at least a day just to paint. David died in 1977 & Joan took up an idea that they had been tossing around before his death; she got Rye Pottery to supply soft biscuit fired models & she painted them & returned them to the pottery for the glaze firing. Many failures ensued as the ceramic paint smudges easily when dry & this made successful transportation of the pieces difficult. Demand was high & Joan had to go to Cinque Ports Pottery to augment the supply of bisque blanks. During a period of exceptionally high demand, the Cinque Ports decorators had to help out by painting some pieces & this led to Joan allowing Cinque Ports to produce their own models, very similar to hers. A change in the production technique followed. Instead of soft biscuit fired blanks Joan used hard fired biscuit and painted it with acrylic paint, finishing it off in marine varnish, eliminating the need for a further firing & the problem of smudging. Items marked with the Cinque Ports backstamp & from a design by Joan de Bethel are wholly the work of Cinque Ports Pottery. Those marked JB © Rye are painted by Joan & glazed & fired by Cinque Ports. The models marked Joan de Bethel or Joan and David de Bethel are hand-painted & cold glazed. Sorry, no returns.