This bowl is an example of Lucie Rie’s ‘Byzantine’ style, which she developed around 1960. The style is characterised by a muted golden-brown glaze, made with a combination of four parts manganese to one part copper carbonate, which produced a patina redolent of aged bronze. A play on materials, creating the appearance of metal in a ceramic vessel, was an important theme in Rie’s work and she later made use of an iron slip in some of her vases. In this bowl, the glaze was applied inside the dish and then marked with ‘sgraffito incisions, while the outer faces of the bowl are of smooth, dappled stoneware. The detailing of the bowl is loaded with instances of Rie’s skilled handicraft. The degree of finish around the bowl’s rim is especially fine: with great precision, the rim is covered in a strong even glaze, while along the outer face of the rim a residue of the glaze was scraped downwards with a comb or similar tool, creating a residue that runs away from the rim and across the stoneware surface, blending one material into another.

The use of ‘sgraffito decoration in this bowl is a highly personal aspect of Rie’s work. She originated this technique in chocolate-brown tableware from the fifties and, with time, the device became a signature trait in her work. In this bowl, lines are scratched along the length of the elongated ovoid of the vessel. The irregularity of a hand-drawn line is allowed to show, but each line is kept clean and distinct. An accommodation of evidently hand-wrought effects is achieved within a structured, carefully controlled format. The result is an interestingly decorated, carefully crafted ceramic that distil the ideals of studio pottery.