Rare vintage Gymea Pottery “Thoora – Young Girl” hand-decorated Australian art pottery mug, dating to the mid-20th century.

This striking piece features the elongated female figure associated with Gymea Pottery’s documented “Thoora – Young Girl” design series, rendered in the distinctive brown and cream glaze seen across the pottery’s period decorative wares.

The underside is hand-inscribed:

“AUTHENTIC Aboriginal Art

‘Thoora – Young girl’

Gymea

Australia”

Gymea Pottery was a small Sydney pottery active during approximately 1954–1964 and associated principally with Stella Chin and her daughter Rita Chin, later Rita Galieh. Their wares were hand decorated and retailed during the period through Prouds.

The “Thoora – Young Girl” motif is specifically documented in modern scholarly research into Gymea Pottery. Significantly, the published survey illustrates the motif on a vase; during extensive current research, no other example of this exact Thoora – Young Girl mug form has been located.

Accordingly, this appears to be an unusually scarce and potentially undocumented form/motif combination within known Gymea production.

Please note that the period wording “AUTHENTIC Aboriginal Art” is reproduced from the original inscription on the base. This piece is offered as original vintage Australian Gymea Pottery and is not represented as artwork made by an Indigenous artist.

The mug presents very well for its age, with expected age-related crazing and minor manufacturing or firing characteristics visible in the photographs.

Please inspect all photographs carefully, including the base inscription, as they form an important part of the description and provenance.

A remarkable survivor of Australian mid-century pottery and a significant piece for a specialist collector of Gymea Pottery, Australian studio pottery or post-war decorative ceramics.