Vintage View: bird with lid head by Wallace Robert Martin

Kya deLongchamps takes a look at stoneware faces only some brothers and fervent collectors could love.

I want you to imagine a Dickensian scene. It’s an inky, chill evening along Havlock Road, near Southall in the city of London in the winter of 1880. Four brothers, all gifted Victorian potters, are closing down their busy studio for the night.

Siblings Walter (called Robert), Wallace and Edwin comb the traces of clay dust from their silken moustaches with ragged fingernails, before stepping out into the smoggy gas-lit gloom of the canal’s edge.