These “Thorley Jugs” show the stages of hand-painting. One has been “bisque” fired to harden the clay. The next one has been glazed with floral decoration. The third has been “glost” fired at a lower temperature to make the glaze decoration adhere better and turn bright colors.

These two mugs demonstrate Thorley’s experimentation process. The floral decoration on one mug failed in the kiln because of problems with the temperature or the formula of metals in the glaze. It took a long time to perfect the chemistry to create a brightly colored successful mug seen here.