(6) Northern Irish Belleek Pottery Parian Ware Pieces. Includes a large tray, two shorter cups, a flower bowl, a bulb cup, and a marmalade jar that is listed as very rare from the second period (1891-1926). All marked on the bases. 

Condition: Overall very good. Some tape residue on lidded vessel and one of the seashell cups. 

Tray: 9 x 11 in. 

Belleek Pottery Ltd is a porcelain company that began trading in 1884 as the Belleek Pottery Works Company Ltd in Belleek, County Fermanagh, Ireland in what was to later become Northern Ireland. The factory produces Parian ware that is characterised by its thinness, slightly iridescent surface and body formulated with a significant proportion of frit. Pottery-making in the Belleek region began around 1849, after John Caldwell Bloomfield inherited his father’s estate. Seeking to provide employment for his tenants, who had been affected by the Great Famine, and being an amateur mineralogist, he ordered a geological survey of his land. On finding that the area was rich in minerals, Bloomfield went into partnership with London architect Robert Williams Armstrong and Dublin merchant David McBirney. In setting up a pottery business, Bloomfield managed to get a railway line built to Belleek so that coal could be delivered with which to fire kilns. Building started on the facility in 1858, and they focused first solely on domestic products. It wasn’t until 1863 that small amounts of the Parian ware for which Belleek is famous for to this day was successfully produced. By 1865 the prestige of the company had increased enough that its market included Australia, Canada, and the United States, with many members of the nobility collecting pieces. The artist and poet Eugene Sheerin worked at Belleek Pottery in the late 19th Century, and by 1884 all of the original owners had died, at which time a local group of investors acquired the concern and named it Belleek Pottery Works Company Ltd. Master craftsmen Frederick Slater moved from England to Belleek in 1893, and when the company struggled to make high-quality porcelain throughout the First and Second World Wars they began to concentrate on producing earthenware instead. The Pottery returned to porcelain after World War II and began the change from coal fired kilns to electric powered kilns, completing changing by 1952. In 1983 the Industrial Development Board gave financial assistance to the company and installed Roger Troughton as the Managing Director. The following year Troughton made a successful bid for the sale of the company. In 1988 Powerscreen International bought the company, and opened a visitor center the following year. The company changed ownership again in 1990 when George G. Moore took over, installing four directors to oversee production. Since then Belleek Pottery has expanded its factory space and acquired several other companies, including Galway Crystal, Aynsley China, and Donegal Parian China. It employs more than six hundred people and earns 30 million pounds a year, with an average annual production of more than 100,000 pieces.

Overall very good. Some tape residue on lidded vessel and one of the seashell cups.