The Gardiner Museum is open seven days a week! Explore our permanent collection, discover special exhibitions, and get hands-on with clay in our studios. We look forward to welcoming you.
Discover an installation of works by American artist Sharif Bey on now in our lobby. Bey's practice is influenced by African and Afro-diasporic aesthetic traditions, as well as ancient Andean ceramics and contemporary popular culture.
Summer will be here before you know it! Don't wait to sign up for the Gardiner's popular summer camps. New this year, all our week-long sessions are full-day multimedia camps, so kids can draw, paint, sculpt, and more.
Every object in our permanent collection can be accessed through our eMuseum portal. Learn about individual collecting areas, like Italian Maiolica or Modern and Contemporary Ceramics, or search the full collection by keyword. You'll be amazed by what you discover!
Help us continue to offer innovative and engaging exhibitions, programs, and community projects in person and online, as well as plan for the future. Please consider making a donation today.
The 19th century saw the perfection and invention of many new ceramic bodies and methods of decoration. These techniques enabled the mass-production of quality, yet affordable tableware that appealed to a wide segment of the market.
This period was also characterized by stylistic eclecticism. By mid-century, the prevailing neoclassical taste was replaced by a vast array of revival styles, leading to the Gothic revival and a new interest in the art of Antiquity and the Renaissance. At the turn of the century, traditional historical revivals were rejected by proponents of the Aesthetic Movement, Arts and Crafts, Art Nouveau, and Secessionist styles.
The Gardiner Museum’s collection reflects the technological advances and stylistic movements that typify ceramic history in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. At the core of this collection are significant holdings of Minton and ceramics for the Canadian market.
1. Moon Flask (detail), England, Stoke-on-Trent, Minton, Deisgned by Christopher Dresser (1834-1904), c.1870-1880, Gift of N. Robert Cumming, G98.1.28
2. Dessert Plate from the Milton Service, "Our Night Camp on Eagle River - Expecting the Crees" (detail), England, Stoke-On-Trent, Minton, c.1967, Purchased with a Gift from N. Robert Cumming, G04.20.1
3. Cake Plate with Arctic Landscape (detail), England, Manufacturer Unknown, c.1840, The Barbara and James Moscovich Collection of Canadian Historical China, G13.15.44