This is a harder-to-find early vintage storage jar - featuring the double confronted dolphins pattern. It was designed in 1960 for Portmeirion by Susan Williams-Ellis.
Blank pots were initially used from earlier Grays or Kirkham Pottery stock and coloured - and the transfer designs applied. Susan Williams-Ellis and her husband bought Kirkham Pottery in 1961.
Kirkham's owned a selection of antique moulds - including these ones for old lidded chemist jars. These moulds were used in the early 60s by Portmeirion and transformed by the application of decorative transfers into kitchen storage jars - rather than commercial medicine pots. The jars were highly coloured and had bands of real 22 gold banding applied to them. This was to give them more of a touch of decadence in the modern 1960s kitchen.
It was not until 1963 that Portmeirion launched its first fully designed products.
This is a rarer early mould shape - an apothecary jar - and the attractive blue colour is harder to find. It is marked FLOUR on the ribbon lozenge on the front.
The jar is in good vintage condition - and looks fabulous on display. Any white flashes on the body of the pot are not marks on the item - but are reflections as the glaze is very shiny - there are tiny areas of rubbing to the gilding - as photographed. More to the rim of the lid - where it has been picked up and moved for the last 60 years.
There is the finest of fine hairlines on the rim of the post base - about 1 cm long - I have photographed this and shown it on the listing here.
Dimensions: the height is 8 1/4 inches and the diameter is 4 3/4 inches.
Since it is a slightly larger size - it would have to be sent as a Royal Mail Medium size parcel to UK addresses only.