A to Z Anthology

As the Society no longer produces newsletters, we will post occasional items of interest here.
Topics will be chosen at random.
Your contributions are welcome.

S is for Star Sign(er)s

Maling seldom allowed in-house designers to sign their work. Indeed, one of the reasons LE Boullemier departed for New Hall in 1936 was the lure of creating a range of wares which would carry his facsimile signature. An example appears on the "Marks" page.

And don't confuse a signature with the mark of a paintress. The latter were used for payment and quality control purposes. The more you painted, the more you earned. If your work wasn't up to standard, you could be identified and rebuked.

This jug was left unfinished after the abdication of King Edward VIII was announced. The base bears the facsimile signature of LEB. Completed examples have an additional hand-painted signature next to the head of the King.

Tony Boullemier adds: "LEB, my grandfather, tended to sign himself either Lucien Boullemier or L Boullemier and the L is quite distinctive, a scripted version with serifs, whereas LGB's L tends to be sans serif. My father painted a wonderful plaque which should have got him into art school in Italy were it not for the war. It was signed L Boullemier 1916, but thereafter he seems to have settled on the signature L.G.Boullemier".

See "Q is for Queen" for an example of LGB's artistry.

The anglicised pronunciation of the family name is "bully-mere" - hence the factory nicknames for the father and son design team: the Old Bull & the Young Bull.
And that's our steer on two Taureans. (Thought you'd got away without a bad joke, didn't you?)

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