Summer Fruits

Formerly a paintress at Wedgewood, Margaret Brian, a lithographer at Portmeirion, set up a hand painting department at the factory in the early 1990’s, creating a team of very skilled hand paintresses known as The Longton Ladies. They created many new designs including Mandarin for John Lewis, Lemon Grove for Harrods and Orchard Fruits for Lawleys. Many more designs followed including The Lanelli Cockerel, Summer Fruits, Peach Tree, Sweet Pea, Barnyard, Portmeirion Dolphin, Magnolia and Kitchen Garden. The quality of the work by The Longton Ladies was far superior to anything available in the United Kingdom at that time but the department was closed in the spring of 1997 due to company re-structuring.

Summer Fruits was specifically developed by Margaret Brian and mirrored the exclusive department store designs that were so successful. The Summer Fruits design was release in 1994 and bears apples, pears and cherries in the motif.  All the examples of  items have been painted by experienced paintresses from the Portmeirion Studio. All the paintresses left their own signature mark on the items they painted and are noted in the item descriptions.