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Archive of the month
Mount Royal offered china painting
This hand-painted tea set bears the signature of Florence Richmond, an early Mount Royal student who studied at the College between 1914 and 1919.
Decorated in the art nouveau style popular at the time, this tea set is an excellent example of early art studies at Mount Royal College.
When Mount Royal welcomed its first students in 1911, a two-year diploma in drawing was offered. A course in china painting, also called porcelain art, was a requirement.
Students could study china painting as part of their art program at Mount Royal until 1931.
A Mount Royal College publication, The Chinook, featured photographs of student art work as shown at the annual Mount Royal December art exhibition, a popular event attended by many Calgarians.
China painting is an ancient Asian art form that uses porcelain, a highly-refined white clay fired at high temperature. Glazed porcelain is delicate but hard, providing a durable and transparent surface ideal for painting.
Richmond painted this tea set using plain glazed porcelain pieces from a factory in the Limoges region of France.
She applied layers of special glazes and fired each layer in a kiln at a temperature of 1,200 F. For the final glaze, Richmond applied the gold trim and signed her name.
Richmond’s tea set returned to Mount Royal in 1995, when her son donated a collection of Richmond’s porcelain work to the Mount Royal Archives.
View a page from the 1931-32 Mount Royal Calendar.
This page regularly showcases the collections of the Mount Royal University Archives. Thanks to the Director of the Archives, Patricia Roome, PhD, and her staff for their assistance in selecting artifacts and conducting research.