Storage Jar with Cork Lid by Susan Williams-Ellis (UK) 1960s

Storage Jar with Cork Lid by Susan Williams-Ellis

This ceramic storage jar was designed by Susan Williams-Ellis and produced by Portmeirion Pottery. Standing 20 cm high and finished with a cork stopper, the jar reflects the lively graphic language that characterised much of Portmeirion’s pottery during the 1960s and 1970s.

The decoration combines stylised geometric and celestial motifs arranged in a strong vertical composition. Blue and green enamel colours are set against a white glazed ground, with forms that include stars, crescents and radiating sun shapes. These motifs echo the playful, folkloric visual language Williams-Ellis often explored in her tableware and decorative ceramics.

Designed as a practical kitchen storage jar, pieces like this were typically used for dry ingredients such as coffee, sugar or grains. The cork lid provides a simple seal while maintaining the informal domestic character that Portmeirion ceramics became known for.

The jar works equally well as a functional kitchen object or as a decorative ceramic piece, where the bold patterning reads clearly even at a distance.

Height: 20 cm

⸻

Designer - Susan Williams-Ellis (1918–2007)

Susan Williams-Ellis was a British ceramic designer and co-founder of Portmeirion Pottery. She was born in 1918, the daughter of architect Sir Clough Williams-Ellis, who created the village of Portmeirion in North Wales.

Williams-Ellis studied painting at the Chelsea School of Art before turning to pottery design. In 1960 she founded Portmeirion Pottery with her husband Euan Cooper-Willis, developing a distinctive approach to tableware that combined historical references, hand-drawn motifs and vivid colour.

She became widely known for the Botanic Garden range introduced in 1972, which remains one of the most commercially successful ceramic tableware patterns ever produced in Britain. Earlier designs explored stylised geometric decoration, folklore imagery and Mediterranean influences, often applied using transfer printing and hand colouring.

Across several decades Williams-Ellis established Portmeirion as one of Britain’s most recognisable ceramic brands, producing tableware and decorative objects that remain widely collected today.