Mid Century Elizabeth Ann MacPhail Lidded Studio Box

Guernsey, c.1960s–70s
 
A small, square lidded box with carved diagonal banding and a soft blue-green glaze worked into the surface.
 
The sides are deeply incised with tight, linear texture running corner to corner, interrupted by a smoother diagonal band that cuts across each face. The glaze settles into the grooves, darkening the recesses and pooling slightly along the raised ridges. The lid echoes the same diagonal movement, with a subtly roughened edge that keeps it feeling handmade rather than architectural.
 
The interior is left pale and clean, contrasting with the more worked exterior. It sits comfortably in the hand — solid, balanced, quietly graphic.
 
It’s functional, but the surface treatment is really the point here. A small object that rewards a closer look.
 
About Elizabeth Ann MacPhail
 
Elizabeth Ann MacPhail worked at Briglin Pottery, 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 form with confident hand-decoration. Pieces attributed to her Guernsey period were produced on a smaller scale and remain comparatively scarce on the market today.
 
Condition: Excellent
Size: W 6cm x D 5.25cm x H 6cm