Lot Essay
Charles Ferdinand Hürten, (Germany 1818-1901 England) was an Exposition artist for Sèvres, and subsequently employed at W.T. Copeland from 1859 until he retired in 1897. A frequent exhibitor, 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.'