Michael Cardew was born in Wimbledon in 1901 and read Classics at Oxford before becoming Bernard Leach's first apprentice in St. Ives in 1923. He opened his own pottery in 1939 in St. Breward in Cornwall before accepting a teaching post in Africa in 1942, where he moved with his family and remained until 1948. He has been described as "one of the finest potters of the century". See Cardew's pots at the Tate and at the V&A.

Bernard Leach (1887-1979) was born in Hong Kong and spent his childhood in Japan and England. In 1911, after returning to Japan with his first wife, he was introduced to raku by his friend Tomimoto Kenkichi and decided to work exclusively on ceramics. He eventually settled in Cornwall in 1920, where he set up his own pottery. See Bernard Leach's pots at the Tate or online here.

This week's Post will look at the work of twentieth-century British studio potters. But first a brief look at what influenced the 'father' of British studio pottery, Bernard Leach. The Arts and Crafts Movement was championed by William Morris and John Ruskin, who focused on the importance of craftsmanship and the decorative arts as a reaction against industrial manufacture. This stained glass window was designed by Edward Burne Jones and made by Morris & Co. A detail of this window, which is in St James' Church in Staveley, Cumbria, was a Christmas 2009 second class stamp.

Of the four Vermeers at the exhibition, three show women at a virginal. The Music Lesson c 1662 (The Royal Collection, Buckingham Palace) is very different from The Lacemaker because of its grand setting and, as The Arts Desk says, 'on this occasion no intimacy is invited between viewer and subject, because an intimacy is being forged between the two in the picture to which an audience may not be privy.'

Grandmothers again: Woman at a Window, Waving at a Girl by Jacobus Vrei c 1650 Custodia Foundation, Paris

The Vermeers are compelling but there are eight other artists in the exhibition. The Courtyard of a House in Delft c. 1658 by  Pieter de Hooch (normally in the National Gallery, London) 'conveys a sense of tranquility and order in [its] modest domestic setting' (The Arts Desk); indeed it does.

A Young Woman Seated at a Virginal c 1670 is normally at the National Gallery but is in Cambridge at the moment. The painting belonged to the art historian who 'discovered' Vermeer in the 1860s, and of course thinking about Vermeer prompts many thoughts about 'forgotten' painters, musicians (Schubert) – and writers. Especially neglected women writers.

So there is an exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge called Vermeer's Women: Secrets and Silence. The centrepiece is The Lacemaker c. 1670 which normally hangs at the Louvre; here is a page (scroll along to the right) which allows anyone who cannot get to Cambridge or, one day, to the Louvre to see the painting in its frame and how tiny it is –  21 cm across and 24 high, smaller than a sheet of A4. Here too is a page with extracts from some Vermeer art critics (inessential but interesting point: one of them is Lawrence Gowing, who was married to Julia Strachey).

Farrow and Ball Ointment Pink

Dorset and a background of 'Ointment Pink' for some Staffordshire figures and antique mugs and jugs. Anyone feeling that they don't have enough mugs, jugs etc in their life should head for Gabor Cossa opposite the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge; and at the same time (rather aptly, as both shop and exhibition are havens of the domestic) should go to Vermeer's Women, more of this next week.

'Book Room Red' in an attic bedroom in Kent. Red... A book room... A nursing chair... A fireplace in a bedroom... The only thing that is missing is a pile of Persephone books.

The weaver's loft at the top of an early Georgian house in Spitalfields, painted in 'Pea Green'. The owner of this house recently bought every single Persephone book!

Ben Pentreath's office, looking across Lamb's Conduit Street to his shop in Rugby Street. The walls are a pale stone colour called 'Clunch'.

It's Farrow and Ball this week, pictures taken from Living with Colour by Ros Byam Shaw with photographs by Jan Baldwin. Here is a bedroom in a house in Sussex: we love the paint, obviously ('Great White'!), the lack of clutter on the table (difficult to achieve in normal life), the rug on the chair, the working shutters, the window seat with the chintz cushion, what's not to like...

Today, ninety-three years after 11 a.m. on 11/11/1918, the UK has two minutes silence. In the shop our thoughts will be particularly with William in William - an Englishman and Julian in Julian Grenfell and, in the fifty books we wish we had published, with Roland Leighton in Testament of Youth.

We put a wonderful portrait of Jacques Raverat (1885-1925), by his wife Gwen Raverat, illustrator of The Runaway, on page 18 of the Biannually. Here is a painting by Jacques himself. It is A Rest Beside the River and was sold at Bonham's two years ago ©  Private Collection.

Harry Bush, who painted the picture on page 27 of the Biannually (Laggard Leaves), is known as the 'Painter of the Suburbs. December Sunshine again shows the artist's house in Queensland Avenue, Merton in 1925.

Some people have commented that it's the first time we have had a child on the cover of the new Biannually and why is this? The answer is that it's very hard to find something that isn't kitsch, or verging on. However, the George Dunlop Leslie is a superb painting, miles from being kitsch. If you look at some more of his paintings here some of them are a bit doubtful by that criterion. But this one, Pot Pourri 1874, is another fascinatingly domestic painting © Christie's/Private Collection/Bridgeman.

This week: paintings related to the recent Persephone Biannually. Today an actual painting because alas it came out rather muted in the Biannually. This is not the printer's fault, it's because of the grey 'tint' that we use as a background on all the pages, but it's an issue to be addressed next year when we plan to have a redesign of the biannually and the catalogue (except whenever we mention this idea to anyone they say, if it ain't broke don't fix it). The newly-discovered Evelyn Dunbar, Girls Learning to Stook and Men Stooking, is on page 23 of the Biannually; it, and Evelyn Dunbar's life and work, will be discussed at an event at the shop tomorrow Tuesday from 6-8.

Yosano Akiko (1878-1942) is one of Japan's most celebrated poets. She was also a feminist, contributing regularly to the monthly literary magazine Seito ('Bluestocking'), a mother of ten and the main breadwinner of her family. She took part in lively debates with other notable feminists within the pages of Seito, criticising social limitations on women. She was in turn criticised both for being too accommodating to her own husband and for setting a bad example to women from less privileged backgrounds by having so many children herself.

Beate Sirota Gordon was born in Vienna in 1923 and moved to Tokyo aged six with her mother and father, a concert pianist and piano teacher. Beate lived in Tokyo for ten years before moving to the USA to attend college. When war broke out she was separated from her parents but returned to Japan as soon as the war ended to find her parents, who had been put under house arrest. She was the first civilian woman to arrive in Japan after the war and since she could speak Japanese fluently she worked for the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers as a translator. It was Beate Sirota Gordon who ensured that legal equality between men and women was written into the postwar Japanese Constitution. Her memoirs are available here.

This is a 1914 advertisement for the in-house magazine ('Hanatsubaki') of Japanese cosmetics company Shiseido. This is the kind of ad that would have been directed at women like Tomo in The Waiting Years and Mary in The Ginger Tree. Shiseido was established in 1872 and remains one of the most successful cosmetics companies in Japan today. It has had a profound influence on Japanese concepts of feminine beauty and consumer culture. See the amazing image archive made available by M.I.T. (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and read the enlightening essay by Gennifer Weisenfeld to accompany the images here.

The Ginger Tree by Oswald Wynd was first published in 1977. If you haven't already read this extraordinary novel you must. It is written in diary form and charts the experiences of Mary MacKenzie, a young Scottish woman, as she travels to China to marry a British military attache in 1903. Eventually, circumstances demand that she moves alone to Tokyo. Oswald Wynd describes early twentieth-century Japan as seen from a foreign woman's perspective with total assurance. The Ginger Tree is also firmly among "the fifty books we wish we had published."