Mid Century Elizabeth Ann MacPhail Large Lidded Box

Guernsey, c.1960s–70s
 
A substantial square lidded box with heavily worked, incised surfaces and a softly undulating lid.
 
Each face is carved with dense diagonal scoring, cut back to reveal bands of pale glaze running corner to corner. The texture is rough, almost bark-like, but structured — the diagonal divisions keep it graphic and controlled. The glaze shifts between blue-grey and green, pooling darker in the recesses and breaking lighter across the raised ridges.
 
The lid sits slightly lifted and curved, not flat — which softens the geometry just enough. From the side, the pale diagonal bands wrap continuously across the corners, giving it that satisfying “all thought through” feeling.
 
It’s architectural, but still unmistakably hand-built.
 
This is one of the stronger, more resolved works in the collection.
 
About Elizabeth Ann MacPhail
 
Elizabeth Ann MacPhail worked at Briglin Pottery in London in the late 1950s before establishing her own studio at Grandes Rocques, Guernsey, from 1961. Her work sits within the British studio pottery tradition of the mid-20th century, combining functional forms with increasingly sculptural experimentation. Pieces from her Guernsey period were produced on a smaller scale and remain relatively scarce on the secondary market today.
 
Condition: Excellent - white mark on bottom is an old cataloguing mark
Size: W 10.5cm x H 11cm