Lot Essay
Hürten was born in Cologne in 1818. He worked for the Copeland porcelain factory from 1859 for 38 years until ill health forced him to retire. The 1874 Art Journal reporter observed that Hürten 'has no superior in flower painting, especially on pieces sufficiently large to give full scope to his vigorous yet delicate pencil: and his perfect feeling for all the beauties of texture and colour in his favourite subjects is sufficiently obvious. He makes us see he is as much a florist as an artist, and as true a student of form as of colour.' The Pottery Gazette, a trade journal also remarked in May 1893 that the artist 'has attained and deservedly so, the distinction of being one of, if not the first, flower painter in Europe.'