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THE LIBRARY
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THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
LOS ANGELES
KEYWORTH r
E HOUSTON L
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The ABC of Collecting
Old English China
Giving a Short History of the English
Factories, and showing how to apply
Tests for Unmarked China before
1800.
/-"
By
J. F. BLACKER.
XonOon :
Published by THE LONDON OPINION CURIO CLUB,
107, Regent Street, "W.
Printed by Henry Good & Son, E.G.
1908.
Copyright. Entered at Stationers' Hall.
INDEX OF FACTORIES, WITH
FOUNDERS^ NAMES.
Bow
Bristol
Caughley
CoAivPOR'r or \
CoLEBROOK Dale (
Chelsea
Derby
Liverpool ...
LoNGTON Hall
Lowestoft
Nantgarw ...
NewhalL . • .
PiNXTON
Plymouth ...
Staffordshire -
BURSLEM ...
Etruria ...
Hanle Y . . .
LONGPORT
LONGTON ...
Stoke-on-Trent
»> »J
»> >>
tunstall
Swansea
SWINTON
Worcester
(Frye)
(Champion)
(Turner)
(Rose)
(Sprimont)
(Duesbnry)
(Chaffers)
(Littler)
(Luson)
(Dilhvyn)
(Bagnall, &c.)
(Coke)
(Cookworthy)
(Rogers)
(Wedgwood)
(Mason)
(Davenport)
(Hilditch)
(Minton)
(Spode)
(Copeland)
(Bridgwood & Clarke) ..
(Dillwyn)
(Rockingham — Brameld)
(Dr. Wall)
PAGE
67
118
20, 21
22
50
80
31
15
26, 27
24, 25
iS
35
106
36
20
36
13
37
14
19
19, 20
37
24
30
38
INDEX OF PERSONS, WITH FACTORIES
FOR WHICH THEY WORKED.
Askew
. (Derby)
Barr
. (Worcester) .
BiLWNGSLEY
. (Derby)
>»
. (Pinxton) .
>>
. (Nantgarw) .
,,
. (Swansea) .
Bloor
. (Derby)
Bone
. (Bristol)
Boreman
. (Derby)
BOTT
. (Worcester)
PAGE
102
43
88, 102
35
25
25
97
123
102
46
I '
4 H --■ ~
a-
INDEX OF PERSONS, WITH FACTORIES FOR
THEY "^ORKED-continued.
WHICH
Eowcockb;
. (Bow)
Brameld
(Rockingham)
BRIDGWOOD & Cl.ARKE..
. (Tunstall) ...
Brittan
(Bristol)
Browne
. (Lowestoft) ...
Chaffers
. (Liverpool) ...
Chamberlain
(Worcester) ...
Champion
(Bristol)
Coffee
(Derby)
Coke
(Pinxton)
Cookworthy
(Plymonth) ...
Copei^and
(Stoke -ou-Trent
Craft
(Bow)
Crowther
(Bow)
Davenport
(Longport) ...
DlI,I,WYN
(Nantgarw) ...
ff ...
(Swansea) ...
DUESBURV, 1ST William
(Longton Hall)
2ND „ ..
(Derby)
3RD ., ...
(Derby)
Flight
(Worcester)...
Fryb
(Bow)
Grainger.
(Worcester) ...
Hancock
(Derby)
Hancock, Robt
(Worcester) ...
Heylyn
(Bow)
HiLDITCH
(Longton) ...
Holdship
(Worcester) ...
Keen
(Derby)
Kerr
(Worcester) ...
Littler
(Longton Hall)
Locker
(Derby)
Luson
(Lowestoft) ...
Mason
(Hanley)
MiNTON
(Stoke-on-Treut)
Pennington
(Liverpool) ...
Rogers
(Burslem) ...
Rose
(Coalport) ...
Spengler
(Derby)
Spode
(Stoke-on-Trent)
Sprimont
(Chelsea)
Tebo
(Bristol)
Turner
(Canghley) ...
Wall, Dr
(Worcester) ...
Weather BY
(Bow)
Wedgwood, Josiah
(Etruria) ...
15. (Derby)
99,
I
'AGE
••74,
76
30
..
37
122,
T2.S
28
32
..
44
..
121
92,
XO5
35
106
..19,
20
67
.67,
72
T3
..
25
24
So
87
88
43
67
•■45
46
103,
104
43
..
67
..
37
••43.
87
-87,
95
45
15
•
90
..
27
36
..
14
..
33
36
. 20,
21
..89,
92
• •
19
..
51
140
..
21
38
••67,
72
, ,
20
57S536
ENGLISH LOCAL
INDEX TO ILLUSTRATIONS.
Bow.— Soft Paste, 4.
Patterns, 68, 69.
Inkpot, 70.
Knife Handles, 73. I
Kitty Clive as "Mrs. Root," 75. I
Marks, 77.
BRiSTor^.— Hard Paste, 6.
A Vase, marked Plymouth, probably Bristol, 116.
Old. — A Plate and a Plateau, 119.
The P'our Seasons, 121.
A beautiful Group, 122.
"Benjamin Franklin," Hard Porcelain Flower Piece, 125.
A beautiful Teaspoon, 127.
A Goblet from the Edkin Collection, 128.
Early Marks, 129.
Fine Porcelain, 130, 131, 133.
Figure, "Asia," 136. ,
Oval Plateau, 137. 1
Marks, 139.
A Compotier, 141.
Caughley and Coalport. — Marks, 21.
Cup and Saucer, Mark S, 22.
Sucrier and Cover, 23.
CheIvSEa.— Early Soft Paste, 2.
White Porcelain, 10.
The earliest Mark, 50.
Early Scent Bottle, 53.
Figures, 54, 61, 62.
Early Marks, 56. J^
Anchor Marks, 58.
The Paste, 59.
A Group of Old, 63.
A group of Birds, 65. ,
ChEI^SEA-Derby.— Cup and Saucer, 81.
Double-handled Cup and Saucer, 82.
Chinese. — White Porcelain, 9. <
Coai^port. — Marks, 21. .1
Davenport.— Impressed Marks, 13.
{
INDEX TO ILLUSTRATIONS-co/jf/nwerf.
Dbrby. — Biscuit Porcelain, 7, 8.
Cup and Saucer, Si.
Double-handled Cup and Saucer, 82.
A fine Vase, 84.
Biscuit Figures, 86, 89, 91.
Large two-handled Vase, 88.
Old Marks, 94.
Bloor, Dresden, &c., Marks, 98.
A Figure, " FalstafF," 100.
LlvERPOOi.. — R. Chaffers, 32.
Marks, 34.
LONGTON HAivt,. — ^Vase and Mark, 16.
Covered Dish, 17.
Lowestoft.— Teapot, 29.
MiNTON.— Marks, 14.
Minor Factories. — Marks, 37.
Mason.— Marks, 37.
NSW Hali,. — Marks and Specimens, 18.
NanTGarw. — Saucer, 27.
PiNXTON. — Marks and Ice-Cooler, 35.
Pi,YMOUTH. — Coffee Cup, 108.
Shell Salt-Cellar, no.
Oriental, Chinese — said to be Plymouth, 112.
Marks, 113.
A fine Mug, marked Plymouth, 115.
Vase, probably Bristol, 116.
Rockingham. — Marks, 30.
Rogers. — Marks, 37.
SpodE. — Marks, 19.
Swansea. — Marks, 24.
Mug, 27.
White Porcei,ain. — Chinese, 9.
Chelsea, 10.
Worcester. — Early Soft Paste, transfer printed, 3.
Old Marks, 42.
Specimens in British Museum, 45.
Later Marks, 47. >
MANY books have been written on Old English
China, and, in venturing to submit this addition
to the number, we hope to reach collectors generally,
and also those to whom the prohibitive price of the
best books, with their lovely illustrations, has been an
absolute barrier to possession. Our illustrations are
many of them drawn with an ordinary pen from a
specimen selected to illustrate a point. The writer has
had the advantage of handling pieces in a great many
collections, and also dealing with china actually for
sale. The cover of the book is from a copper plate in
the author's possession, engraved in 1614, and will form
the cover of the series.
Thanks are due, and are hereby tendered, to Mr.
J. H. YoxAivL, M.A., M.P., for kindly reading the
proofs.
OLD CHINA.
THE A B C OF COLLECTING.
THE beginner is bound to make mistakes in china-buying
as in everything else, but, with careful guidance, errors
may be reduced to a minimum. This book aims to give
that guidance and to lead the diligent student onward, step by
Step, until a more or less expert judgment may be given by him
on specimens submitted for his examination,
China-Buying '^^^ ^Tst note is one of warning — never buy
with your ears — in other words, learn to rely
upon your eyes, upon your fingers, upon a knife, or upon a file.
The respectable dealers will always give a written guarantee
with any piece of costly china, and will refund the price if
proved to be wrong. On the other hand, the tyro can scarcely
expect to begin by making extraordinary bargains ; therefore,
the best plan at starting is to limit your price until such a
time as you feel sure of yourself. Now, Old China is divided
into two classes, both translucent if held up to the light —
hard paste is one class, soft paste is the other.
Old China is Hard paste is sometimes called true porcelain,
Two Cla s s because it is composed of natural elements,
and soft paste is artificial porcelain, because
it is a combination of various materials, forming a transparent
cement, which was first heated or fritted and then mixed with
other substances, such as white clay, to give opacity to
the body. In both hard and soft paste every piece was
covered with a glaze. As a rule, the glaze on a hard body
was itself hard ; so, on the other hand, a soft glaze and a soft
body were used together. There are a few variations from this
rule, and these will be dealt with as they arise in connection
with the various factories. Let us now examine a piece of
hard paste china and learn to distinguish it from a piece of soft
paste. It is absolutely necessary to master this difference, so
B
2 OLD CHINA
as to be able at once to say, "This is hard," "That is soft."
At first, a file should be used on any piece of modern Chinese,
German, or French china where it is free from glaze, and it
The
Difference.
Early Chelsea— Soft Paste. Embossed Anchor MarK.
will be found that the file does not cut the paste. If this test
is applied similarly to a piece of Old English soft paste china,
the file will make a distinct cut. Here at once you have the
difference — one is as hard as the steel and the other is soft by
comparison. Again, a penknife will scratch the one and not
the other. Rub the pieces of china on your thumbnail, the hard
paste will abrade the nail, the soft paste will
not. Then practise with the tips of the
fingers on various pieces that you have
previously tested, feeling the unglazed paste until such time as
you recognise the " hard " and the " soft " touch. Other pieces
not previously tested should be subjected to examination in the
same way. Another test by the sense of feeling is better applied
by the lips, in the same way that lapidaries distinguish between
a precious stone and a bit of paste. The hard porcelain is much
nearer the composition of a stone than is the soft paste, which
is more like glass or paste. Hence, to the lips the hard paste
keeps cold, as does the stone, but the soft paste soon becomes as
warm as the lips. This is an unusual test, but it is a very good
one. Those pieces which have been tested by the file or the knife
should be further examined in this way, which has the additional
advantage that the paste makes but a very
Hard Paste. small variation from the result. Hard paste
is made of china stone and china clay, whilst
soft paste contains much glass. The examination of the paste is
rendered much more easy when the pieces under examination
I HE A B C OF COLLECTING
have been broken, because the fractured surfaces of the two kinds
of china show differences which are easily detected. The hard
paste shows a milk-white nearly smooth surface, slightly curved,
with a glassy lustre and signs of granulation ; whilst the soft
paste has many varieties, but all of them have an irregular
fracture. Some soft paste appears like semi-opaque glass, other
pieces present a dry, rather dull appearance, possibly due to the
presence of bone-ash, which was used in varying proportions at
Chelsea, Worcester, and other potteries probably as early as 1760.
Yet, later, the soft paste of Derby has an opacity or earthiness
which adversely affected the enamel colours
used in the Bloor period. The previous file
tests can be applied with good results to
the paste first and then to the glaze. Now, the glaze on hard
paste china is usually china stone, sometimes softened by the
Soft Paste
of Derby.
Early Worcester— Soft Paste. Transfer Printed.
Richard Holdship's MarK.
addition of lime, and it will resist the file almost as well as
the paste itself. This may be accounted for by the fact that
the body and the glaze are fired in one operation in the kiln
at a fierce heat, which causes a complete incorporation of the
glaze with the body. In the artificial porcelain the glaze
may be easily scratched with a knife, in fact, many early
English cups show the marks made by the spoon when the
B 2
4 OLD CHINA
tea has been stirred. The glaze on this soft paste is simply
a very fusible glass, which was applied after the body had been
fired once and brought to what is known as the biscuit state.
After the glaze itself had been fired, usually at a lower
temperature than was necessary for the body, it was ready to
receive its decoration in enamel colours, for it may be noted
that only blue was commonly used under the glaze itself. We
will now examine these enamel colours.
From what we have learnt previously, we gather that true
porcelain required a very fierce heat, about 1,350 degrees to 1,450
degrees Centigrade, and artificial porcelain
Enamel would be fused into a shapeless mass at this
temperature. So that enamel colours applied
to hard paste china were melted and burnt in at the high tem-
perature given above, and even then they were often not
thoroughly absorbed, as in the soft paste. This can be both seen
and felt. The enamel colours can be seen on the surface, and if
Bow— Soft Paste.
you pass your fingers around a hard Oriental piece with decoration
in these colours you will feel them easily enough. The fact that
such colours are sometimes removed by wear is due to the lower
temperature at which they are applied. The Chinese burnt their
enamels in at a very high temperature, and specimens which are
hundreds of years old maintain their pristine beauty. On soft
paste the enamel colours sink into and through the glaze, and have
THE A B C OF COLLECTING 5
a tendency to run, leaving the edges more or less ragged. This is
why the English factories adopted the plan of outlining the enamel
pattern with a gold line or scroll. In early soft paste this gilding
was a dead or matt gold, but when a new process was adopted the
brown gold was burnished. In soft paste Sevres the gold used was
almost always the beautiful matt gold. Some Early English china
bears evidence of bad enamelling. The colours are worn off, not
because the porcelain body is hard, as a matter of fact it is soft, but
because the buming-in process has been ineffective, the glaze and
the enamel have not been incorporated, the temperature in the kiln
was not high enough. Hence, often the enamel colours flake off.
The collector will find examples of old Chinese porcelain cups,
saucers, vases, and dishes with the hardest possible paste, decorated
in England at Chelsea, Bow, and Lowestoft, especially the last.
The so-called Lowestoft hard paste is generally Chinese, which
has been enamelled in England, and the insufficient heat applied
in the English kilns did not melt the glaze on
p the Chinese porcelain. It was only able to
make the enamel colours adhere to the surface,
and you will find them dry and rough above the glaze, with
frequent marks showing where the colours once had been. In
enamelling it is well to remember that it was often necessary to
send the pieces to the kiln not once but several times. Hence
there was a thorough combination between the enamels and the
glaze in artificial porcelain which gave them a beauty and
durability strikingly evidenced in the Sevres pdte tendre at the
Wallace collection and in English specimens in the London
museums. Another characteristic of soft paste china is to be seen
in cups, saucers, basins, and vases — they are easily stained by use.
Hard porcelain cannot be stained by any coloured or greasy
liquids, but soft porcelain is much more porous, so that when once
the glaze is pierced the process of discolouration begins. "When,
then, you see a cup which has lost its pure white tone and become
brown in tint you may conclude that it is soft paste. Finely-
painted specimens with rich gilding are frequently found with this
brown tint and with the scratches made by the spoon inside — a
double evidence of soft paste and soft glaze. I said just now that
discolouration took place when the glaze was pierced if the article
was in use. There need not be any abrasion of the glaze, for
many of the early specimens of soft paste are quite full of minute
6 OLD CHINA
holes, which may be seen under a glass of high magnifying power,
and, more than that, their constituent parts were very imperfectly
united, the mass was not homogeneous, so that staining by use
was quite common.
Much may be learnt by examining old china by means of
transmitted light. A piece of Old White Worcester held up to a
strong light shows a faint greenish tint which
Examining Old , ., ,. ,. ,, ^^^ . .
China marks it distinctly as Worcester. Again,
many pieces of Old Chelsea, which factory
used a glassy frit, have internal evidence of the use of glass,
for when held up to light they show bright spots in the paste.
These spots are termed "moons," and they show, what has before
been mentioned, the ingredients were imperfectly associated. This
was first noticed by the late Dr. H. W. Diamond, and is thus
described by him : " The soft waxen pieces of Chelsea porcelain,
which belong to the first period, often exhibit, when we view a
candle through them, a number of moon-like discs scattered about
the pieces irregularly and more transluscent than the rest of the
material." With regard to the decoration to be found on Early
English China, it will be well to note that Chinese and Japanese
patterns were copied, or, when not directly copied, supplied the
motif ; the English artists also imitated Dresden and Sevres,
including the marks. The marks on china form a trap for the
unwary, and they are only valuable when the peculiarities of our
old factories corroborate the marks. Models and marks may be
accurate, but both may only indicate a French or German modern
reproduction of an Old English piece. The beginner who has
mastered the differences between hard and soft paste rises superior
Bristol "Hard Paste.
to these forgeries. He has only to remember that Plymouth,
Bristol, and New Hall were the only old hard paste productions in
England, and that Chelsea, Bow, Derby, Longton Hall, Worcester,
THE A B C OF COLLECTING 7
Caughley, and Coalport made soft paste. Further, it must be
noted that hard pavSte porcelain only continued to be made in
England at New Hall until about the year 1810 or 1812, when the
bone paste, which had been gradually making its way in all the
potteries, finally superseded it, and at the same time displaced the
various artificial bodies in the other works. From that time
onwards the endless combinations of sands, marls, alkalies, lime,
&c., which gave an individuality to the early factories, were swept
away, and, with the exceptions of Swansea and Nantgarw, a
standard body — mechanically perfect — has been adopted, which
destroys the collector's interest in everything except decoration
and marks.
BISCUIT PORCELAIN.
The simplest, yet the most beautiful, china, oftentimes the
rarest and most valuable, is the plain, white, unglazed ware. The
surface is a dull white, resembling marble. The
real biscuit is that which was not intended
either for decoration with a plain glaze, still less
for decoration in colours. Such was the Old Chinese biscuit,
carved like lace-work in porcelain, and so thin that it seemed as if
the potter desired to ascertain the limits to which fretwork might
The Rarest and
Most Valuable.
Biscuit Porcelain— Derby.
be carried. Then, again, the Bristol biscuit, as evidenced in the
scarce, lovely, but fragile Bristol bisque plaques, showed bouquets
of raised flowers modelled in a delicate and masterly style. The
8
OLD CHINA
flowers are those of the English gardens, and though both the
Chinese pieces and the Bristol are hard paste^ the character of
the decoration will be a sufficient guide. The rose is the chief
flower used in English decoration, whilst the lotus would take its
place when flowers were used as the decoration of Chinese biscuit.
Amongst the other English factories, Derby biscuit takes a high
place, because of the beauty of the modelling and the soft smooth-
Biscuit Porcelain— Derby.
Charles James Fox.
ness of its surface. The figures and groups modelled by Spengler
reach an eminence which has never been attained by any other
English factory. They differ just as much from the ordinary
so-called biscuit, which is only china left white and undecorated,
as does the fine wax-like Wedgwood of the best period from
the modem productions of Wedgwood ware.
THE A B C OF COLLECTING 9
If you take a Spengler's group, and rub your fingers over its
surface, the diflference between that and a piece of Rockingham
biscuit will be so evident as to need no further
Bisc it W demonstration ; one illustration of this kind
will remain as a life-long lesson. Spengler's
biscuit, like Wedgwood's old ware, is perfectly smooth and soft to
the touch. All of the biscuit referred to is of a dead white, and it
differs in this respect from another imitation of marble, very
beautiful in its way, but, for some unexplained cause, never very
popular — Parian.
The statuary and busts so extensively made by the
Messrs. Copeland in imitation of Parian, as opposed to Carrara,
marble, was a development of the famous
and Busts Derby Biscuit. It is necessary to draw the
attention of the beginner to the differences
between the Parian product and biscuit properly so-called,
because some dealers try to get rid of Parian as if it were biscuit.
White Porcelain— Cliinese.
To take the chief point of difference, the colour, contrast will show
that Parian is of a pale yellowish tint when compared with biscuit,
which is white — quite white. Parian was introduced about 1846,
at the suggestion, it is said, of Gibson, the sculptor, so that it does
not enter into our classification of " Old China." Yet some of the
fine Parian pieces, not Copeland's alone, but from other factories,
too, are artistically fine, such as " The Infancy of Jupiter," " Lady
Godiva," "The Flute-Player," "The Reading Girl," and busts,
"A Mother" and "Love." Besides figures, groups, and busts,
various other beautiful products are made in Parian. The first point
to be emphasised here is that Parian is not biscuit, and the other
point is that it is not old. As there is no glaze upon biscuit china,
10
OLD CHINA
the file will give easy evidence as to whether the paste is hard
or soft.
This forms a large class of our earliest ware, and is often
distinguished by disfiguring cracks, crazes, and blemishes, which
naturally mark the experimental stage. For
instance, two Taoist immortals, or gods, in
white porcelain, might be submitted to you.
The model is the same, yet one is Chinese and the other Plymouth.
How can you detect this difference ? The colour glaze and the
firing of the Chinese product are all perfect ; the glaze lies
smoothly and evenly, and the paste is not cracked or flawed in the
Plain White
Porcelain, Glazed.
White Porcelain -Chelsea.
Bust of George II.
kiln. The inside is very like the sugar icing on a cake, and has no
glaze. The Plymouth figure, on the contrary, is not white ; it is all
stained brown, owing to the use of wood in the kiln. From the
same cause it has a number of tiny black spots all round it,
especially on the projecting parts. Again, owing to imperfect
combustion, it has numerous flaws or fire cracks. Both are hard
THE A B C OF COLLECTING ii
paste with hard glaze, which the file will not touch, but the
Chinese production shows the hand of a master, whilst the
Plymouth figure is evidently the work of a beginner. There are
several qualities of white, of which the most valuable is a rich
creamy tint, called blanc de Chine, which was copied with some
success at St. Cloud, Dresden, Chelsea, and elsewhere. To take
one example — a teapot. The Chinese form and colour were
reproduced at all the factories named, and the Chelsea copy is
marked by the anchor embossed. The early white glazed ware,
especially the teaci;ps, saucers, and plates, are of very slight value,
except for purposes of comparison. Generally there is no mark,
and it is only by applying the tests which have been given that
the collector can classify them. Certain well-known pieces are
striking, such as the bust of George II., height 15j ins., after that
modelled by Rysbrack, about 1745, Chelsea (see illustration), and
Mr. Woodward as " A Fine Gentleman " in the play Lethe by
David Garrick, about 1765, Chelsea, with another statuette of
Mrs. Catherine (Kitty) Clive as "Mrs. Riot" in the same play, of
the same period and factory. These specimens should receive the
careful attention of beginners, for they embody the highest
excellence in white, or rather blanc de Chine, that our English
manufacturers have ever produced.
The fault of most beginners is that they expect to go through
a museum or to read a book or a few articles, and then to become
experts. The museum is exceedingly helpful,
A Word to but try and take a few pieces at a time, not a
Beginners. few cases, and thoroughly study them. The
best experience is handling genuine examples
and noting all the characteristics. The period of ceramic history
covered by variations in the paste and glaze ends with the
eighteenth century, so that all the factories alike produced what
may be termed "bone porcelain" quite early in the nineteenth
century, and, consequently, if the later white china is examined,
no differences can be seen either in the paste or glaze, and if
there is no mark nor any distinctive style of colour or decora-
tion, the general classification of " Old Staffordshire " is applied.
Old Staffordshire china, unnamed, is seldom of the highest
quality, but Longton Hall, New Hall, Davenport, Minton, Spode,
and Wedgwood are names which are dear to collectors. Pro-
fessor Church says : " I felt that a single specimen of early
12 OLD CHINA
Minton porcelain would suffice to represent a whole group of
factories, including those carried on by Davenport, Spode, and
Wedgwood, so far as their productions in porcelain are concerned,"
The decoration under the glaze in blue on English china is
either painted or printed ; on Oriental china it is always painted.
Let us examine a saucer of Worcester blue-
Blue-and-White , , •. , . . , . .,
under the Glare and-white, and compare it with a similar
Chinese one. Viewed by transmitted light,
the Worcester has a greenish tinge in the paste. By the use of
the file we find that both paste and glaze are soft. The glaze lies
unevenly inside the rim underneath, and there may be a more or
less irregular space where the glaze is so thin as almost to dis-
appear. If there is a crescent mark, or a script W, or any other
Worcester mark, we are sure it is Worcester. The painting is not
very clearly outlined. Why ? Because the paste is soft and the
colour sinks into it, something in the same way that the ink from
the pen does on a piece of blotting-paper, though not so badly.
The paste itself has been through the kiln, so that the colour is
applied to the biscuit, which is absorbent. After the painting is
completed, the glaze is applied and the piece fired a second time.
Now turn to the Chinese saucer. It is hard both in paste and
glaze, as tested by a file, and is all through alike when examined
by transmitted light. The blue decoration has a firm outline, and
the colour itself is more varied in its shades — that is, the blue is
not of one depth in tone ; in fact, some parts appear to have had,
as it were, two coats of colour. The process of application was that
the cobalt was applied to the raw paste before firing, after it had
been dried in the air. The glazing and firing took place after the
painting was done. If the two pieces are now placed side by side,
the superiority of the Oriental will be apparent. With a power-
ful magnifying glass other differences can be noted, such as the
tiny points in the Chinese piece made by the melting of the glaze
in the kiln.
The Salopian blue is very similar in tone to that of Worcester,
but the Plymouth blue is a dead, dull, dark blue, and Bristol is
finer, but not nearly as fine as the Chinese.
The Salopian ^^ ordinary blue-and-white printed Wor-
cester is excellent of its kind. The fine
quality of the porcelain body, the skill shown in form, decoration,
and general style, were approached by Caughley (Salop), though
THE ABC OP COLLECTING
13
the transfer-printed ware of the latter factory was a brighter
underglaze blue. Just a hint on the designs found on English
china. Even during the best period, which extended from 1750
to 1780, when Chelsea and Worcester, to say nothing of the other
factories, were producing specimens of peculiar excellence in
body and decoration, the English potters displayed but little
originality — they simply copied. The Chinese and Japanese fur-
nished the patterns for the enamel colouring, and often for the
shapes and style. Similarly, when Dresden and Sevres, a little
later, became the rage, and were the models of shape, colouring,
and painting, our factories copied them, even to the marks !
Dresden i:^ hard paste, and early Sevres is soft.
^^ven/,o^ -Q^V^^^^/ yON^^^f^
A^ ^ aJt .
DAVENPORT
LO NC 9Q RT
SrAFF£>flD5H;RF
DaTenport Impressed MarKs.
There are various printed marKs.
OLD STAFFORDSHIRE,
^^Still tracing backwards from the modern to the old, it is
advisable to secure any specimens of china marked Davenport, or
Davenport over Longport, or Davenport over
Longport over Staffordshire. Generally
speaking, the anchor has been the trade mark
of the firm. George, Prince of Wales, after-
in company with his brother William, who
succeeded him on the throne, visited Davenport's works in 1806,
and on the accession of William IV. a superb service of china was
ordered for the coronation banquet. On this service the crown
was first used as a mark. The china produced by this factory
Davenport:
of Longport,
Burslezn.
wards George IV.
14 OLD CHINA
was (and is) remarkably good in quality and make, both paste
and glaze being amongst the best of this period of Staffordshire.
I say " and is," because Thomas Hughes & Son, Longport, Staffs.,
is the present firm, which holds a high place amongst modern
makers. The old firm produced excellent tea and dessert services,
unsurpassed for rich colour and gilding. Old Indian and Japan
patterns, with rich, deep blues and reds, are as faultless in the
potting as they are in decoration. The Davenport blue-and-white,
either painted or transfer-printed, especially the old Willow
pattern, is highly successful. But, remembering that Davenport
is scarcely " old " china, the beginner must study the marks first,
then the decoration and the gilding— gilt handles, gilt feet, border
rims, raised ornaments, and scroll work.
In 1793, Thomas Minton, who had been employed as a
draughtsman and engraver for various potters, including Josiah
Spode, determined to manufacture on his
Minton: ^^^ account, but it was only quite near this
Stohe=upon=Trent.
end of the eighteenth century that he com-
menced to make porcelain, his previous efforts having been
confined to earthenware. Practically, the Minton sought by
^^ -^
%
MINTON— 7»/^ressed.
Minion.
collectors covered the period about 1798-1810, and approximated
to hard paste. It was after much trouble and many visits to
Cornwall that Thomas Minton was enabled to secure a regular
supply of good and pure material — Cornish china clay and
china stone. The products at finst were white, cream-coloured,
and blue-printed earthenware. In 1798 semi-transparent porcelain
was made, so that the dates given above must be borne in mind.
From 1811 to 1821 no porcelain was made, earthenware only being
THE A B C OF COLLECTING 15
produced. In the latter year it was again produced, and continues
now. Mintons have been noted for the encouragement they have
given to foreign artists, such as Jeannest, Belleuse, and Protat, all
sculptors, who modelled for them, and, above all, that unique
artist, M. Solon, formerly of Sevres. His pdte-sur-pdte is an
exquisite production, by which liquid clay is used, instead of
colour, to produce designs in very low relief, under the glaze.
Solon's works are very costly, but they will be much more so as
the years roll on. They are not " old." The chief Minton marks
are given above.
NOTK. — The Sevres marks and the single capital M are the
early ones, the later are printed.
Here, again, we are just at the dividing line between " old "
and "modern " china. When, in 1770, Josiah Spode acquired the
business of Messrs. Turner & Banks, it is stated that he manu-
factured earthenware and porcelain, but the evidence is not clear.
His son, Josiah, in 1800, certainly did make china, and, more than
that, he was the first to use the simple mixture of bone-ash,
china stone, and china clay, which has become the standard
typical paste or body of English porcelain, and which swept
away all the differences between the products of the various
factories as far as the paste was concerned.
Recent investigations seem to show that the earliest Staf-
fordshire porcelain was made about 1745 bj' William L,ittler, at
Brownhills, near Burslem, and there is a
„ .. certain demand for specimens of his work,
especially those which are marked. As
early as 1752 he moved to Longton Hall, near Newcastle,,
•Staffordshire, and the mark, as given in the illustration, is very
distinctive, two ly's crossed, having three or more dots underneath
— lyittler, lyongton. It is known that William Duesbury, the
Derby manufacturer, worked at Longton Hall, and it appears that
he purchased the models and moulds when the works came to an
end in 1759, and transferred them to Derby. The British Museum
has some pieces of this ware, which the beginner should see, and
•at South Kensington there are other specimens. The body, or
paste, of Littler's porcelain is rather vitreous or glassy, and,
therefore, translucent. It bears a close resemblance to the
rougher Chelsea of the earlier period, but in nearly every case it
will be found to have the usual marks of any early experimental
i6 OLD CHINA
period — the cracks, flaws, and imperfections due to imperfect
firing ; the uncTcn, wavy surface, with, as it were, a heaviness or
Longton Hall Vase and Mark.
lumpiness under the base, caused by the heat in the furnace
acting upon the glassy frit. But the paste is not the main feature
by which Longton Hall can be identified.
The first is a brilliant blue, which must have been derived
from a very pure cobalt. It is very dark, like the dark blue of
Derby, but it is streaked or flooded as if it
The Decoration j^ad run upon an uneven surface, so as to give
"" T * t ^° ^ depth and richness resembling the flamhe
colours of the Chinese, only the Chinese
never seemed to get this exact shade of cobalt. The second is
that the scroll-work, which in most factories would have been
carried out in gilt, is here done in white enamel. It is well to be
quite clear on this important point. Previously we have shown
that the soft paste gave ragged edges to underglaze colours, so
that a gilt border was generally used in the arabesques which
(Outlined the compartments or reserves, in order to cover the
2^HE ABC OF COLLECTING
i7
edges, but Longton Hall used white enamel for the same purpose,
and it was the only English factory which did this. True, gold is
found as a decoration, but that gold is matt gold, leaf gold applied
by the use of gold size, but not burnt in. The rich, streaky blue
body will be noted in the Schreiber collection, as well as on the
specimens in the British Museum.
Another peculiarity of Longton Hall is the flower decoration,
as shown in the illustrations. The flowers are not in groups, or
wreaths about the neck or foot, but simply
The Peculiarity stuck singly Upon the rim, giving an effect at
of Longton Hall j .1 i- 1.^1. j
^ ,. one and the same time both curious -and
Decoration.
clumsy. These are poor and crude in
modelling and colour, as are many of the figures, which -are
unmarked as a rule, and look like poor quality Bow or Chelsea,
except that the bases are sometimes decorated with raised flowers
Longton Hall— CoTered Dish.
having the streaky Ivongton Hall blue. Yet, other vases of a
much higher type, with most elaborate raised flower and raised
bird decoration, ascribed to this factory, have fetched large sums.
Three were sold in 1901 for over £240. From the advertisements
issued in 1757 and 1758 we learn that white, blue-and-white, and
enamelled porcelains were produced, including open-work fruit
baskets and plates, leaf basins and plates, figures and flowers of
all sorts, melons, and cauliflowers. The commonest forms, as yet
recognised, are plates and dishes decorated on the edges with
embossed vine leaves, often coloured with the streaky blue which
has been described, but which should be seen. Shortly, then, the
main facts that the beginner has to remember about Longton Hall
c
i8
OLD CHINA
china are the rich, streaky blue colour, the flowers on their stalks
in the round, the peculiar early English flower painting, the
translucent paste, and the hints given with regard to the failures
of an experimental stage — cracks, crazes, and deviations from
form.
In 1781 Champion, the maker of Bristol china, sold his patent
rights to a company of potters in Staffordshire, at New Hall,
Shelton, who made hard pavSte for a short
New Hall. time only. It is said that this hard paste
was marked with a large script N incised, but
generally it had no mark. It resembled in body and glaze the
Bristol china, and bears a marked resemblance to it in its
decoration. The ingredients given in Champion's specification
New Hall.
were used, and some of the artists from his factory were employed
at New Hall ; yet it appears to be very difficult to identify the
hard paste products of this factory, possibly because of its likeness
to Bristol. About the year 1800 bone paste — the standard com-
position — was adopted, superseding the hard paste, the patent for
which had expired in 1796. In 1825 the entire stock of the New
Hall concern was sold off", and the works were closed. The only
other mark besides the cursive incised N was the name New Hall
enclosed in a double circle. This mark was used from about 1820
to 1825. The illustration, which shows the two marks, gives two
specimens of New Hall. The teapot was made for one of the
THE A B C OP COLLECTING 19
partners in the firm, Charles Bagnall. It is beautifully painted.
On one side is a group of children playing at blindman's buflf.
On the opposite side is another group of a boy riding on a dog.
On the lid are two small figure vignettes. The cup and saucer is
of excellent form, and the twisted fluting resembles the simpler
forms of Worcester and Derby. It is noteworthy that in 1810 a
patent was acquired " for printing landscapes and other designs
from copper plates, in gold and platinum, upon porcelain and
pottery." With regard to the porcelain of New Hall, as well as
to that of I/ongton Hall, comparatively little is known, and it is
eminently desirable that the expert on the spot should carry out
researches like those of Owen on Bristol, which added so much
to the sum of our knowledge of the products of that factory. In
the meantime the condemnation so often bestowed upon New
Hall of clumsy painting, rough drawing, coarse and crude effects,
and so on, requires revision, because many examples recently
unearthed show such a style of decoration, with a good body and
glaze, that there need be no hesitation in buying fine New Hall
china.
Spode MarRs.
The first Josiah Spode was a hired workman, who was
engaged at Thomas Whieldon's pottery until he started in
business for himself at Stoke in 1770. In
Spode. partnership with Copeland he opened a depot
in Portugal Street, Ivondon, where much
earthenware goods were sold. Passing over the history of the
other partners we come to the third Josiah Spode, who died in
c 2
20 OLD CHINA
1829. Six years later Alderman Copeland purchased the entire
concern, and soon after Thomas Garrett, the principal traveller for
the firm, was taken into partnership. The marks on the
earthenware and china closely follow this hi.story, though the first
Copeland seems to have had but little interest in the works at
Stoke. At first the word SPODE was impressed in the paste, or
painted on the glaze, then SPODE FELSPAR PORCELAIN,
either impressed, or painted, or printed. The more modern marks
were usually printed and accompanied by a name indicating the
pattern of the print used for decoration, such as " Castle," intro-
duced in 1806, "Roman" 1811, "Turk" 1813, "Milkmaid,"
"Dagger Border," "Peacock," and "New Temple" 1814. The
present proprietors are W. T, Copeland & Sons. Old Spode is
worthy of the attention of the collector, and will be increasing in
value because of the greater diflSculty in securing fine pieces.
The great Josiah Wedg-wood was not a maker of porcelain,
though his jasper ware is similar to many specimens of Old
Chinese porcelain with regard to its nature
Wedgwood. and composition. This ware is classified
amongst the pottery, but porcelain was made
at Etruria by his nephew, Thomas Byerley, from 1805 to about
1815. The output was small, and even in the museums there are
only a few specimens. Curiously, though Wedgwood ware is
marked by the highest taste and skill, the Wedgwood china does
not exhibit those qualities. The paste is good but the forms are
poor, and the decoration does not reach the highest standard.
Designs in conventional flowers, in natural flowers, and in low
relief without colour were the usual style of decoration. The
mark was nearly always WEDGWOOD, stencilled or transfer
printed, usually in red and rarely in blue or gold. Remember, it is
WEDGWOOD, not WEDGEWOOD, nor WEDGWOOD & CO.
W. Smith & Co., of Stockton-on-Tees, stamped " Wedgewood " on
their wares, but were stopped by an injunction in 1848. Ralph
Wedgwood marked his goods " Wedgwood & Co.," and imitated
Josiah's wares. Since 1872 the manufacture of porcelain has been
resumed.
Caughley is Old China, because the works were closed in 1814,
when John Rose, of Coalport, on the opposite side of the River
Severn, transferred the plant, after having used it since 1799
as a branch establishment. The coal at Caughley had given
THE A B C OF COLLECTING 2i
out, and the cost of carrying the unfinished goods by hand —
or, rather, by head — was too great. The ware was carried down
the hill and across the water by women, who
,_. *" ^7 , bore the burden on their heads all the way.
(Shropshire).
It was in 1772 that Thomas Turner, who was
trained at Worcester, bought the old Caughley pot works, and in
1775 we read, " The porcelain factory is now quite completed, and
the proprietors have received and completed orders to a very
considerable amount. lyately we saw some of their productions,
which, in colour and fineness, are truly elegant and beautiful, and
have the bright and lively white of the so-much-extolled Oriental."
In 1780 Turner went to France to pick up knowledge from the
French factories, and he brought back with him skilled workmen
etc Sss,
<S)
t^
Caughley and Coalport Marks.
as well as the knowledge which his education enabled him easily
to acquire, for he was both artist and chemist. During the same
year he introduced the famous "Willow pattern," and this was the
first made in England, being printed under the glaze in a rich
deep-blue colour. Other Chinese subjects, such as the " Broseley
Blue Dragon," were made at about the same time. Probably the
engraver was Hancock, though Turner himself was a good
engraver. It must not be thought that only printed china was
made here, for, indeed, some of the best works marked with the S
of Caughley are quite as fine as the best early Worcester, and.
more than that, they cannot be distinguished from Worcester,
except by the mark. The early marks of the Turner period were
22
OLD CHINA
S or C printed or painted in blue under the glaze, tlie ordinary
written figures disguised like Cliinese marks, and the word
SALOPIAN, which gives the S. The last mark is impressed.
Was the crescent used as a mark at this factory ? Opinions differ.
Jewitt says emphatically that it was, and that he had seen
undoubted pieces of Worcester and Caughley printed with same
pattern and having the same mark — the crescent. He further
states that a great proportion of the transfer printing for
Worcester was done at Caughley. May not the real solution be
that the factories did not attach as much importance upon the
mark as we do ? But, in any case, the recent authorities are
content to ascribe the crescent to Worcester. The old marks
were continued by Rose when he bought the works, but the rich
gilding which he introduced distinguishes those later pieces
which also show the early marks.
At Jackfield, bought in 1780, Mr. Rose began to make china
for a short time before he removed to Coalport, so that when his
old master. Turner, of Caughley, gave up
Coalport business, Rose became the purchaser, having
or
Coalbrookdale. practically beaten out of the market the man
in whose house he had lodged, and who had
taught him the art of china-making. Unhappy diflferences
destroyed friendship ! Rose resembled Duesbury, of Derby, in
Caughley— MarK S.
his power of absorption ; Derby absorbed Bow, Chelsea and
Longton Hall, and Coalport took Caughley, Swansea, Nantgarw,
with several smaller works ; and to-day the Coalport China Co.,
Limited (John Rose & Company) has a high reputation amongst
the potters of the kingdom. The business was a success from
THE A B C OF COLLECTING 23
the beginning, perhaps because " copying " was extensively
practised. Dresden was copied — shape, colour, embossing, mark,
and all. The style of painting of birds and flowers was (for
Dresden) Dresden. Again, Sevres was copied very successfully,
and Chelsea, too, including the marks. All is not Chelsea that
has the gold anchor, nor Sevres pate, tendre that has the crossed
L's. Professor Church says : " The vases are often coarse imita-
tions of Chelsea porcelain, and sometimes
Forged Marks, bear what must be looked upon as the
forged mark of an anchor in gold. Cups and
saucers are also found having two 1,'s crossed, in imitation
of Sevres; marks of other factories, English and foreign^ are
also found upon pieces of Coalport porcelain and earthenware."
However, the earliest copies from Chinese patterns in blue
printed and painted ware had great popularity. Reference has
been made to the " Willow " and " Broseley Blue Dragon "
.•s7-:^i'!
Caughley— Sucrier and Cover.
patterns of Caughley, where they were first made, and at
Coalport they had the most extensive sale of any pattern ever
introduced, especially the " Willow " pattern. So that ordinary
plates and dishes of this pattern, which was also produced by
other factories, are plentiful, and are only worth a few shillings,
except the early pieces bearing the Caughley mark, such as
the cups without handles, ribbed and finished just like the
24 OLD CHINA
Chinese, with a painted, and not a printed, pattern. The paste
of Coalport has no distinctive difference from the ordinary
standard English porcelain, except that in 1820 the medal of
the Society of Arts was awarded to Mr. John Rose " for the best
porcelain produced without lead glaze." The list of marks shows
the rose, obvious enough, then Coalport, written and very rare.
Then come combinations, C D for Coalbrookdale and C B D for
the same, and a further one of C Dale written. In connection
with some of these in a ribbon is " Daniell, London," which firm,
like Mortlocks and other firms connected with Coalport, gave
large orders, and had their advertisement. The curious mark
with C. S. N. inside a written "&" is a late mark, and on examina-
tion the "&" can be analysed into C (Coalport) andS (Salopian),
whilst the C. S. N. show the absorption of Caughley, Swansea,
and Nantgarw. Later Staffordvshire — Mason's, &c., see page 36.
- Billingsley, the famous flower painter, of Derby, and his
son-in-law, Walker, seem to have been true Bohemians, a real case of
"Oh! where shall I wander? Oh! where shall
Swansea. I roam?" and in their roaming they set up
for themselves at Nantgarw, and sent a letter
in 1814 to the Board of Trade, which Sir Joseph Banks, as a
member of the Board, referred to Mr. Dillwyn, of Swansea — the
J)ZLL\VTN & Co. i/yn^i^re^^iye^
T' l^tt SWANSEA
Swansea MarKs.
Cambrian Pottery — for examination and report. He accordingly
reports : " Upon witnessing the firing of a kiln at Nantgarw, I
found much reason for considering that the body was too nearly
THE A B C OF COLLECTING 25
allied to glass to bear the necessary heat, and observed that nine-
tenths of the articles were either shivered or more of less injured
in shape by the " firing." But as Billingsley, who also was called
Beeley, made Mr. Dillwyn believe that the kiln was defective, he
made an offer to give the paste a trial at his pottery, where two
new kilns were built under their direction, and the manufacture of
china was commenced, to be terminated in 1817, when Flight &
Barr, of Worcester, wrote to Mr. Dillwyn stating that Billingsley
and Walker were absconding workmen from their works, and
that he must not employ them. Upon which they were dis-
charged and returned to Nantgarw. They had succeeded in
making a beautiful translucent china with superb decoration
— notably the Billingsley rose — in fact, the finest porcelain with
granulated texture ever made, perfectly homogeneous, and so
clear that when viewed through transmitted light through the
back the whole of the painted pattern could be seen in its proper
, colours. Yet it would be an error to assume that all Swansea
china had the same soft, glassy, transparent texture. There was
the Billingsley period, 1814 to 1817, which had all three qualities,
but side by side was an experimental body, 1815 to 1818, made by
Dillwyn himself, harder and stronger than that of Billingsley,
and showing when held up to the light a greenish tinge, and,
lastly, Bevington's porcelain, 1818 to 1823, which was marked
by an unusual dead whiteness. Bevington succeeded Dillwyn,
and in 1823 Rose, of Coalport, purchased the moulds, and soon
after Billingsley gave up his second attempt at Nantgarw and
migrated to Coalport.
There is a marked resemblance between the china of Swansea
and that of Nantgarw in the soft, milky, beautiful, almost trans-
parent paste, and in the flower painting.
Nantgarw. Indeed, the mark itself, NANT-GARW or
NANTGARW, impressed in the paste, and
easily read when held up to the light, was apparently used at
both factories. And as Billingsley was the flower painter,
naturally, his lovely roses — lovely beyond compare — decorated
the products of the two works, though Swansea had embossed
patterns, often flowers in addition, which are not found on
Nantgarw. Then W. W. Young, who before Billingsley's time
was the principal painter on Swansea pottery, an artist of great
ability, not alone skilful in painting flowers, but birds, butterflies,
26 OLD CHINA
insects, and shells, drawn from nature, followed him as the pro-
prietor of the Nantgarw factory, when he finally gave up and went
to Coalport, so that it is practically impossible to separate the two
fabrics. In the account of Swansea china we noted that Nantgarw
works were started in 1811 and closed in 1814, when Billingsley,
the great rose painter, went to Swansea. On his dismissal by
Dillwyn in 1817 he returned to his old factory till 1819, and it was
during this period, owing to the monetary support of liberal
friends, that his best work was done. The earlier efibrt had
resulted in " nine-tenths " of the articles being spoilt, and the
immense waste of spoiled goods — " wasters " they were called — no
S-wansea Mug.
doubt accounted for the ultimate closing. Yet such was the
beauty of the services, like the one presented to the Prince
Regent, afterwards George IV., that "as many as forty gentlemen's
carriages had been known to be there in one day." Moreover, the
London firms — Mortlocks especially — bought largely, and often
white china, to be decorated in London by artists — Webster
notably, who afterwards went to Derby. Exquisite paste,
excellent painting of flowers and landscapes, and delicious little
figures in hats and baskets — real gems of art — will render Nant-
garw famous for ever. But it is so rare and so dear! To buy the
finest one must be — well, a millionaire ! The mark " NANT-
GARW " is sometimes in red. The C.W. below the mark is said
to mean " China Works." Others say it is G.W. for " George
Walker," Billingsley's son-in-law, whose name some say was
THE A B C OF COLLECTING 27
" Satnuel." I do not know. But this I know, that fine specimens
are absolutely the best English, purely native, designs I have
ever seen.
NANTTCAKW
CW
Saucer, lilac and gold scale ground.
If all the china which is called Lowestoft were made at that
place, then Lowestoft must have been the greatest factory of
ancient or modern times. Hard paste and
Lowestoft. soft paste having a certain style of decoration
is called " Lowestoft." Oriental Chinese is
" Lowestoft" by many people because certain festoons of flowers are
found on it. This Chinese porcelain was made in vast quantities
for the English market, and had not the slightest connection with
Lowestoft, except that a few white pieces might have been
decorated there. The true " Lowestoft " was a soft paste
porcelain — easily filed — and though the records are scanty they
are conclusive. Gillingwater, in his " History of Lowestoft," 1790,
says that " The only manufactory carried on at Lowestoft is that
of making porcelain or china ware, where the proprietors have
brought this ingenious art to a great degree of perfection, and,
from the prospect it affords, promises to be attended with much
success." Mr. Hewlin Luson made an attempt in 1756 to utilise
some fine clay found on his estate, but the London manufacturers
tampered with his workmen, and his scheme failed because they
spoiled the ware. In the next year Messrs. Walker, Brown,
Aldred & Rickman tried, and succeeded where Luson failed..
aS OLD CHINA
They happened to discover the malpractices of the workmen, and
took such precautions as to render every future attempt of this
-nature ineffectual. They employed a considerable number of
workmen, and opened, in 1770, a warehouse in London, the name
of the firm being then Messrs. Robert Browne & Company, and
their London agent C. Durnford, and supplied, in addition,
the principal towns in the adjacent counties. The early ware,
known by the dated pieces, was not china but delft ware, and the
recorded dates are 1752, 1756, 1759, and 1760. From 1761 to 1800
china-making flourished, and, indeed, attained some great degree
of excellence, for we find that Wedgwood's account, showing the
purchases made by his buyer in 1775, contains the entry, " Two
slop-basins Derby and Leastoff, Is. 6d." Wedgwood at that time
was collecting examples of the products of the different English
factories in order to examine the body or paste made at each
place. Lowestoft china, like delft, was often marked with the
•date and the name or initials, probably, of the person for whom it
was made. Some pieces had also the name of a town — Lowestoft,
Yarmouth, Norwich — but nearly every one of these dated
^specimens was blue-and-white, so that we may assume that the
finer body and elaborate colouring belonged to a later period.
The earliest mark of this kind was R.B., 1762, and the two latest
•G. C. LOWESTOFT, 1789, and Thos. and Elijah Crafer, Downham,
1795. There was no factory mark and no mark was used on the
"base. In 1902, just a hundred years after the works were closed,
the site was excavated, and many fragments of finished and
unfinished ware and broken moulds were unearthed, so that much
misapprehension as to hard and soft paste Lowestoft has been
swept away. All of the earlier English factories varied in their
paste, and though Lowestoft is harder than Bow or Chelsea, it is
decidedly soft to the file test, and rather opaque and yellowish
when held up to the light. The glaze is slightly tinged with blue
and marked with black specks and dots in the earlier and
■commoner pieces.
Owing to the discovery of moulds on the site, which corres-
pond with existing specimens, it is now certain that a variety of
embossed patterns which were attributed to
Discovery ,^, , , , ^ .
of Mould Worcester belonged to Lowestoft ; we may go
farther and compare the carefully-made pieces
of Lowestoft to the best goods of the same type from the Bow
THE A B C OF COLLECTING
291
and Worcester factories in every way, decoration included. The
minuteness and delicacy of the decoration, the beauty of the
wreaths, festoons, and groups of flowers, and the excellence of
the finish, all combine to raise Lowestoft to a high place among
the English factories of the eighteenth century. The specimens-
in the national museums are a good guide to the collector, and
should be studied. The illustration is drawn from an illustration
in the British Museum Guide, and when we remember that the-
Lowestoft— Teapot.
mould which was found at Lowestoft corresponds with the teapot^
which is painted in blue and has an embossed pattern, it is
evident that there is still scope for a further inquiry into English
blue -and -white. The dated pieces had such names as the
following: ABRM. MOORE, 1765; Edward Morley, 1768; Robert
Haward, 1781; ELUS WYETH, October ye 10th, 1782; John.
Moore, Yarmouth, 1782; J. W. S., 1784. Collectors should study
the impressions from the recently-found moulds which are shown
at the British Museum, and thus correct the many false impres-
sions that are rife concerning this factory.
This factory produced various kinds of earthenware, probably
as early as 1745, but the porcelain with which we have to deal is-
comparatively modern, and only covers the
period 1820-1842. The mark used was an
incised mark, Rockingham, and the im-
pressed marks in large or small capitals,
The name MORTLOCK appears on some
examples, notably the " Cadogan " coffee and tea pots, not in
porcelain, but in earthenware. Then, after 1806, when the old
partners agreed to separate, " Greens, Bingley, and Company "
RocKingham.
Swinton,
Yorhshlre.
ROCKINGHAM.
JO OLD CHINA
disappeared, to be succeeded by " BRAMELD," whose name,
impressed, or Bramel,d and Co., occurs as a mark. Sometimes
the name BramEI^D is on an oval blue wafer, embossed and stuck
to the ware. Then, on unglazed biscuit figures, similar to the
biscuit of Derby, though not nearly so fine, we find the words
Royal Rockingham Works, Brameld, and later the griffin
crest with Rockingham Works, Bramei^d and Co., or
Rockingham Works, Bratneld [see mark). It is said that the
griffin crest, the crest of the Earl Fitzwilliam, was adopted in
1826, when either he became the proprietor of the works or
rendered considerable pecuniary assistance to the factory. These
griffin marks are usually printed in red, but sometimes, when the
names are in writing letters, purple is used, or, rarely, gold.
Rockingham is only just now ranking as old china, yet, in view
Rockingham Mark, other than those in capital
and writing letters.
of the fact that collectors are giving their attention to it, a tout
prix, because of the extreme difficulty of getting anything better.
Like all of our English china from about
ng am 1800, Rockingham is technically as near per-
near perfection. . o .< t
fection as the best, but when we consider
the over-laden decoration and gilding, we cannot classify it
amongst the artistic productions of our potteries. There are
exceptions to this sweeping statement, but, speaking generally,
the ornamental productions were of poor form, extravagant
colour, and excessive gilding. The workmanship was good ; no
fault could be found with the potting, the glazing, the gilding, or
the enamelling ; but the designs were far inferior to some of the
other contemporary work. Still, we do find that J. W. Brameld,
the brother of the proprietor, painted some really fine flowers
figures, and landscapes. It may be that the enormous vase at
THE A B C OF COLLECTING 31
South Kensington Museum, over 3 ft. in height, was painted by
him. If so, it is an example of very fine, rich colouring, combined
with extraordinary painting, in every way excellent. Perhaps the
best work was done for Royalty. In 1830 H.R.H. the Duchess of
Cumberland ordered a service, consisting of three dozen plates ;
six of each were painted with interiors, shells, birds, fruit, real
landscapes, and marine views ; and plateaux similarly painted —
all of which, with two cream bowls and two ice cellars, was to be
made for the agreed price of 250 guineas. Three years later the
Duke of Sussex gave a larger order for forty pieces and six dozen
plates, to cost 860 guineas, or £600 for two-thirds of the articles.
Both of these orders followed on one which had given King
William IV. the greatest satisfaction, though it cost him £5,000.
The designs were made by J. W. Brameld, and either executed by
him, by Speight (father and son), or by John Creswell, an
excellent painter, who engaged himself in 1826 to serve the firm
for five years, at a daily wage of 7s. 6d. a day for the first three
years, 9s. 3d. a day for the fourth year, and 10s. 6d. a day for the
fifth year — unusually high wages at that period. It was in 1830
that the title " Royal " was prefixed to " Rockingham Works,"
and Brameld became china manufacturers and potters to the
King, Queen, and Royal Family. Eight years later he undertook
quite a new departure by making china and earthenware bedposts,
cornices, lamps, candelabra, tables, &c. These are now very rare ;
the body was white ; Rose-du-Barry was the favourite colour, with
floral decorations in yellow, often with a transfer-printed outline.
The Rockingham Works proved a commercial failure, and they
were closed in 1842, after involving a loss of thousands of pounds.
At a recent sale at Christie's, a Rockingham vase and cover,
painted with panels of flowers and an inscription in salmon and
gold borders, on dark-blue ground, 16 in. high, was sold for
5i guineas.
The history of potting in Liverpool takes us back to 1674,
when earthenware " cupps " and " muggs " were largely exported,
and when " Shaw's Delft ware works," at
Liverpool!. Shaw's Brow, was in full swing, as was shown
by many dated pieces in the early part of the
eighteenth century. Then, again, we have to remember that John
Sadler, of this city, invented the art of printing on earthenware
and china in 1752. By the aid of Guy Green this process was
32
OLD CHINA
brought to great perfection, so that we are not surprised to find
that these two men, both printers, revolutionised the art of deco-
rating all kinds of cheap ware, and secured large orders from the
various potteries, including that of Wedgwood. Alderman Shaw,
of the Delft works, and another potter, Samuel Gilbody, in a sworn
statement in 1756, say, "We are well assured that John Sadler and
Guy Green did, on Tuesday, the 27th day of July last past, within
the space of six hours print upwards of 1,200 earthenware
tiles of diflferent colours and patterns, which is, upon a moderate
computation, more than one hundred good workmen could have
done of the same pattern, in the same space of time, by the usual
painting with the pencil." The process was afterwards applied to
services and other goods. But china was made at Liverpool
and was decorated with transfer-printing in black and in colours.
1
Liverpool— R. Chaffers.
At least three men made porcelain before the Herculaneum factory
was started. Richard ChaflFers was one of these. He commenced,
in 1752, making pottery at Shaw's Brow, near the works of his old
master. Alderman Shaw ; but all the potting world had been
THE A B C OF COLLECTING 33
excited by Cookworthy's discovery of the materials for making
true porcelain, and Chaffers determined to visit Cornwall and
search for himself. The story of how he found china clay is
interesting ; still, the chief fact was, he did
China Clay ^°^ ^^' ^"^ proceeded, in 1756, to sell goods
made from it, as this advertisement shows :
" Chaffers & Co., China Manufactory. — The porcelain or china
ware made by Richard Chaffers & Co. is sold nowhere in the
town, but at the manufactory on Shaw's Brow .... N.B. — All the
ware is proved with boiling water before it is exposed for sale."
Specimens of this china ware — hard paste — are rare and un-
marked. The cup in the illustration is painted after the Oriental
style, and is faultless in potting and colouring. It was kept in
the Chaffers family until Mr. Mayer, of Liverpool, acquired it for
his collection. Unfortunately, Chaffers himself was cut off in the
prime of life, for his foreman, Podmore, to whom he was deeply
attached, was seized with malignant fever, and called foi his
master, who at once visited the sufferer, with the result that
master and servant were a few days after interred near each other
in the same churchyard. The works were soon closed, not before
warm praise had been given to its products by no less an expert
than Wedgwood, to whom Chaffers had presented a tea service.
The great potter, on looking at one of the cups, admiring the body
and examining the colours, exclaimed, " This puts an end to the
battle. Mr. Chaffers beats us all in his colours and with his
knowledge. He can make colours for two guineas which I cannot
produce so good for five." And yet Wedgwood did not praise
Champion, of Bristol ! Seth Pennington, also of Shaw's Brow,
the home of the Liverpool potter, produced earthenware in large
quantities, and remarkably fine Delft ware, as well as china
services, bowls, and other pieces. Some of his bowls, notably the
punch-bowls, were very large, the largest measuring no less than
1Q\ inches in diameter. His productions were soft paste, for in
the specification for his " china body," bone-ash, Lynn sand, flint,
and clay, probably Cornish clay, are given as the constituents.
Very little is known of Pennington's china, except that it had a
rich blue colour, the recipe for which £1,000 had been refused.
Pennington's brother, James, in a drunken bout, gave away the
secret to the agents of a Staffordshire potter. Some pieces of
this Liverpool ware are marked P (see marks). Philip Christian,
D
34 OLD CHINA
again of Shaw's Brow, in 1769, specified the materials of a "soft
paste " body, and, later, produced in china ware good dinner, tea,
and coffee services, vases, and other ornaments, but his produc-
tions differed so slightly from those of the other makers of the
F |5 1.
/
/
Liverpool Marks— 1. Seth Pennington;
2, 3, 4, Herculaneum.
same period and place that they have not, as yet, been separately
identified. No mark was used, so the task of investigation is not
at all easy.
The blue-printed ware and cream-coloured ware, or Queen's
ware, made at this factory were of very good quality, and were
usually marked with HERCUI.ANEUM, im-
verpoo pressed. The terra-cotta vases, red and black
Herculaneum. ^
figures, and biscuit vases, were good and
similarly marked. Early in the last century, about 1800, china
making was commenced, and china was produced, though not in
large quantities, till the works were closed in 1841. In 1822, at a
meeting of the proprietors, it was ordered that " to give publicity
and identity to the china and earthenware manufactured by the
Herculaneum Pottery Company, the words 'HERCULANEUM
POTTERY ' be stamped or marked on some conspicuous part of
THE A B C OF COLLECTING 35
all china and earthenware made and manufactured at the
manufactory." Before that time it is said that the marks were
printed in blue. There were variations of the impressed " HER-
CULANEUM " mark, sometimes a crown with the word in a
curve above it, sometimes a crown within a garter bearing the
word. Another mark, about 1833, is a bird, called the liver, the
crest of I/iverpool, which in three varieties is found impressed in
the ware. The last mark given, " Cambridge " in scrollwork,
indicates the place from which the view used in the decoration is
taken. Note, many of the early specimens from these works
have a peculiar green tinge about them, which was the effect of
an accidental but lasting tint from copper.
The founder of these works, Mr. Johyi Coke, had lived for
some years in Dresden, where he had imbibed that taste for
porcelain which led him to found a factory
^ . ',> ^ 1.1 in 1795, under the management of the
East Derbyshire. ' °
celebrated William Billingsley, who came from
the Derby works. Here Billingsley first produced the distinctive
granular glassy paste, or body, which he afterwards brought to
Pinxton Marks and Ice-Cooler.
perfection at Nantgarw and Swansea. His unique flowers — roses
especially — are not often found on Pinxton china, for his time
D 2
36 OLD CHINA
and attention were mainly devoted to the practical side of
potting, and the decoration was applied by experienced artists
from the Derby factory, which accounts for the resemblance
between Pinxton and Derby china, being often painted with
sprigs of flowers and landscapes, more or less slightly sketched.
Unfortunately, some differences arose between Mr, Coke and
Billingsley, so that in 1801 we find the latter at Mansfield,
painting and finishing china which he is said to have bought in
the white state in Staffordshire. When he left, Pinxton began to
decline ; the works were sold in 1804 to Mr. Cutts, and only
continued till 1812. Pinxton at the best period is more noted for
the beauty of the body and the excellence of the gilding than for
the decoration. The latter ware had a different and much inferior
body, simply the ordinary quality of all English porcelain quite
at the beginning of the nineteenth century, with the exception of
Torksey, Worcester, Nantgarw, Swansea, and Coalport, to each of
which in succession Billingsley carried his secret, which he most
carefully kept to himself. The few marks found on Pinxton
are given. Occasionally, the word " Pinxton " is found written in
gold, with a pattern number; and both the Roman P and the
italic P are ascribed to this factory, though, as a rule, no special
mark was used.
Perhaps MASON'S PATENT IRONSTONE CHINA is the
most widely known of all the later factories, as it is usually
marked, either printed in blue or impressed
Minor and later in the paste. The patent, which was taken
Mason's. Rogers'. °^^ ^° ^^^^ ^^ Charles James Mason, of
6c. Hanley, passed out of his hands in 1851, and
the mark was modified to " REAL IRON-
STONE CHINA," with or without the name of ASHWORTH.
The ironstone china deserves its name ; it is extremely hard and
durable, and in its finer forms the imitations of Oriental and
so-called Indian patterns are rich in colours and gilding. A
sample mark is given.
Rogers — John and George — had extensive works at Burslem,
where they produced tea and other services from 1786 to 1842,
when the factory was bought by James Edwards. The mark used
was the name of " ROGERS," impressed or printed ; or, later,
" JAMES EDWARDS AND SON," with the Royal Arms above
the name. This factory was noted for its light-blue " Broseley "
THE A B C OF COLLECTING 37
and " Willow " pattern, and for various others, such as the " bishop,"
" barley," " mediaeval," " tulip," and " scroll." The mark is given.
£gMA
toGZKS noCERS
(SizmeChlnA
hemic d
m
Some Minor Factories* Marks.
In 1795 Messrs. Hilditch & Sons, of Longton, purchased the
Church Street works, which had been established in the latter
half of the eighteenth century, and rivalled Josiah Spode and
Thomas Minton in the quality of the work produced. The tea
services were excellent in body, design, and in decoration ;
landscape and figure vignettes and imitations of Indian patterns.
Then, again, leaves and roses were accurately drawn from nature,
and, as it were, carelessly thrown on grounds of various tints.
The early mark is given. At Tunstall, Phoenix Works, Messrs.
Bridgwood Sc Clarke, early in the nineteenth century, made
" white granite " opaque porcelain in large quantities for the
American markets, where it successfully competed with French
porcelain. The mark is given. In addition to these, there are
many other minor and later factories which might be described,
but, as the later ones can be easily identified, because they are
usually marked with the name of the manufacturer, it is not
necessary to say more. Of the minor earlier ones, such as
Torksey and Madeley, the records are slight, and the future may
yield more information. Meanwhile, the collector goes on for
ever, searching, hunting, and securing specimens, from which he
derives the keenest gratification, the joy of possession.
J8 OLD CHlifA
WORCESTER.
LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGUE, the sprightly letter-
writer, long ago declared that " old china is below nobody's
taste, since it has been the Duke of Argyll's, whose under-
standing has never been doubted either by his friends or enemies."
As an object of cultured and serious study, as
Old China a relaxation from the business of life, as a
^ , . means of home decoration of the best type, or
nobody s taste.
as a pastime for the idle man of means, why
not collect old china ? If you are a connoisseur, and really know
what to buy, old china is a very good investment, too. At the
present time Worcester china is much sought after, and fine
specimens fetch high prices; therefore these chapters will com-
mence with a popular study of Worcester. The factory at
Worcester was founded by Dr. Wall, a physician, well skilled in
chemistry, who had employed himself in researches and experi-
ments so successfully that a practical business was possible in
1751, with W. Davies as manager till 1783. The most brilliant
years were from 1768-83, during which period the decoration
reached its highest excellence.
The early English factories began by making white, or blue-
and-white, china in exact imitation of the Chinese, and met with
such success as to encourage further imita-
-. .. 1 ^ ^r\y tions in colours of both Chinese and Japanese
English Factories.
porcelain. The earliest Worcester — Dr. Wall's
Worcester — consisted of tea services and other articles for
domestic use, painted in blue, under the glaze, with Chinese sub-
jects. Sometimes the decoration was modified by another pattern,
slightly embossed or raised. The characteristics of this early
ware are to be found in the paste and the glaze. The paste was
6f a creamy white, very soft and pleasing ; when held up to the
light the well-known slightly greenish tint could be detected.
The composition of the paste was not known, but practically it
was a glassy frit, containing more or less soapstone, which made
WORCESTER 39
up the part which was not fusible. Thus it resembled all the early
pastes, such as Bow and Chelsea, which were made of fusible
glass, varying in composition and therefore in hardness, mixed
with as much finely-ground non-fusible material as it would take
up and hold. Bone-dust was added to the soapstone or china rock
at an early date, whilst later the paste of all English porcelain
acquired a typical uniformity, and has to be distinguished by
other means.
Worcester belongs to the class of " soft paste " china. It can
be scratched with the point of a penknife or with a file, or, to take
even simpler means, if you rub it with your
Distinct! n thumb-nail it will not file the nail, though
" hard paste " will do this. The glaze, applied
by dipping, gives a glassy covering to the paste or body, and makes
it impervious to liquids. By comparison, the Worcester glaze is
thinner than that of Bow and Chelsea, and harder than that of
Derby. In the very early pieces of Worcester a .slight discoloura-
tion is sometimes found, owing to excess of lead in the glaze. A
notable distinction enables one who knows to tell in a minute
whether the piece under consideration is or is not Worcester, and
this is worthy of note for all those who collect old china. On the \
base of cups, saucers, dishes, &c., at the part remote from the :
middle and nearest the rim there is a shrinkage of glaze, so clearly \
shown in most pieces as to be a typical Worcester mark, even if I
there is no other.
Marks are so frequently forged that they cannot by them-
selves be trusted, but, taken in conjunction with the paste and
the glaze, they afford an additional means of
P . identification. The earliest marks are pro-
bably the tiny workmen's marks, of which a
selection will be given. Then follows the cursive W for Wall till
,1783. Another of the earliest marks is the crescent till 1793,
which must not be confounded with the Caughley crescent or C.
The square mark indicates the very best Worcester. Following
the blue-and-white, and afterwards proceeding side by side with
it, Worcester china was painted in colours and gilt, still imitating
Chinese and Japanese. The finest imitations were made, until
an English form of decoration gave a distinctive character to
Worcester by the adoption of transfer printing in 1756, by Robert
Hancock, from Battersea, where the process had been applied to
40 OLD CHINA
enamels. The " King of Prussia " mu<i is a notable example of tlie
style. Other portraits, such as Queen Charlotte, William Pitt,
and the Marquis of Granby, were produced, as well as engravings
by Hancock, Val, Green, Ross, and others, of rural, domestic, and
contemporary society subjects. The process of transfer printing
since this time has been widely adopted, and most recently by the
Japanese. From 1772-1774 Hancock was a partner in the concern.
In the latter year he left, and transfer printing gradually declined.
Richard Holdship, another partner, was associated with him in
the process of this printing, and his initials are sometime.^ found
on the engraved plates, whilst Robert Hancock's full name is on
others.
. The collector vShould note that early specimens in black, and
less frequently in red, puce, or purple, are printed over the
glaze, that is, the impressions from engraved
c . copper plates were applied to the article to be
Specimens. '^'- ^ ^^
decorated after it was practically finished ;
then it was burned in by refiring. Later, in 1770, blue and other
colours were applied under the glaze, so that painted blue under
the glaze, and blue printed under the glaze, must be distinguished.
Sometimes pieces were decorated by a combination of the two pro-
cesses, partly transfer printed and partly painted ; the outlines
were furnished by mechanical means and the colour applied by
hand. Even vases of a high quality, painted with extreme care,
show a ground-work of transfer printing. The printed pieces in
blue were marked with a closed or filled-in crescent, whereas on
painted ware the crescent was always an open or outline one.
Avoid Worcester forgeries ! In the old days Worcester copied
Dresden and vSevres, both in form and decoration, and, in addition,
copied the marks. Now, amongst present-day
Worcester , • i i. • r
c i d D d forgeries, none are so prevalent as copies of
the Old Worcester scale-pattern blue, painted
with exotic birds, with the square mark in blue, period 1768-1783.
As before mentioned, this was the zenith of the Worcester works.
In 1768 an advertisement from Spring Gardens, Charing Cross,
Stated that the Worcester proprietors had engaged the best painters
from Chelsea, and that they could execute orders in the highest
taste and much cheaper than could be afforded by any painters in
London. Now, the china painters in London, owing to the
demand for Worcester, had been buying large quantities of white
WORCESTER 41
Worcester, which they themselves painted and sold. Here was a
counter-stroke from the factory. Dyer, Mills, and Willman, from
Chelsea, went to Worcester as painters, but the Worcester style
had been settled before this. What factory, ancient or modern,
Oriental, Continental, or English, could excel the gros blue and
the powdered blue of Worcester ? Imitating the mazarine blue
and the powdered blue of the Chinese, they excelled them, because
they added a softness and delicacy which soft paste always
possesses and which is lacking in hard paste.
° "*** ^^ Nay, more, Worcester added a salmon-scale
Delicacy. j i i
blue, which remains supreme, notwithstanding
French and German forgeries. This is much sought after by
collectors and dealers, and it is worth more than its weight in gold.
But there is Worcester and Worcester, even when it is scale blue.
An ordinary cup and saucer, for example, with flowers in white
panels, in colours and gilt, is worth about £8 to £10. A similar
one, with exotic birds finely painted, is about three times as
valuable, and a pair of such cups with Watteau figure decoration
were sold at the Trapnell sale for £157 10s. In order of merit
and value, finely-gilt scale blue may be classed in order of its
painting — figures, exotic birds, flowers.
Other rich ground colours were successfitUy employed,
amongst them pea-green, maroon, yellow, and turquoise. As
with the blues, panels were reserved in white
<n V r^ ? for painting. Just another hint on the colours
Ground Colours. ^ o j
and the gilding. In soft paste, the ground
colours — those applied under the glaze — sink into the paste, and
seldom leave a clear, well-defined edge, for the unglazed paste
has a power of absorption after the manner of blotting-paper.
This is hidden by a rich frame in gold, which in the early pieces
is a dead matt gold, not rubbed down and burnished, as it is later.
When the collector begins, how is he to know ? Real knowledge
comes by experience, and by experience only, until he reaches the
stage when he says, " I do not know how I know, but I know ! "
Be careful ; get guarantees when purchasing, and do not buy
" with your ears." Just two examples : One was a dealer whose
friends got up a little surprise for him. At an auction he bought
three fine Worcester vases for £1,000. They were beautiful
forgeries. The other was a dealer who bought two pea-green
Worcester vases for 35s. at an auction. He did not " know," so he
42 OLD CHINA
sold them for £4 to another man who did know, and he sold them
for £1,000.
The many examples of forgeries which are to be found in the
shops will be useful to the collector, because they will teach him
what to avoid. But the distinctive features of
Forgeries ^^^ Worcester as to paste, glaze, and colour
will soon be recognised, and the marks now
given will be a great help in the same direction. The W is said
to be the mark of those pieces made under the personal direction
C^
$
4/
of Dr. Wall, but it is interesting that Warmstry (the factory) and
Worcester should have the same initial. The crescent is supposed
WORCESTER 43
to have been taken from the arms of the family of Warmstry,
which were carved on the wainscoted walls of the rooms which
the workmen used. The W had several forms {see Nos. 1 to 5),
and the crescent varied, as shown in Nos. 6 to 9, The next
numbers up to 15 are meaningless imitations of Oriental marks,
whilst 17 and 18 are poor forgeries of the crossed Dresden swords
which were used with the W. The square marks were variously
fretted, and they, too, were originally copied from Oriental. In
some factories — Derby, for instance — the workmen or painters
had numbers. At Sevres the painters used monograms, or figures,
or emblems. The small marks found on
Sevres Embl Worcester resemble the Sevres emblems, but,
unfortunately, no list seems to have been
preserved in the former factory. The list given is capable of
extension, and it remains for those who have specimens of old
Worcester, without any factory mark, to inspect with care the rim
of the base, or the base itself, so as to discover the very tiny
marks in gold colour, or blue, of which thirty examples are given.
Notes on these marks will be welcomed. Dresden marks {a) and
Sevres (&) were good forgeries of the early marks of those
factories. The monogram R.H., with the anchor, was the mark
of Richard Holdship, who, with Robert Hancock, shared or
disputed the claim for the fine transfer printing. The last three
marks are B, scratched in the paste for Barr ; Flight's mark with the
crown and crescent ; and one of the numerous marks of the com-
bination — in this case Barr, Flight, and Barr. These introduce
the second period. In 1783, T. Flight, the London agent of the
works, bought them for £3,000, including premises, stock, plant,
and models. " Flight " or " Flights " was used as a mark, written
or impressed, sometimes with a crescent
Name Mark • ^ j • 1 1 atm • 1
w jiri J painted m blue. This name mark was
was Modified. ^
modified as changes occurred amongst the
proprietors. In 1793 these were Flight and Barr; in 1807, Flight,
Barr, and Barr; 1813, Barr, Flight, and Barr; 1829 to 1840, Barr
and Barr. The initials alone were often used as a mark, either
painted, printed, or scratched in the paste. The scratched B for
Barr, is not frequently found. There was a great deterioration in
the quality and beauty of Worcester beginining with the Flight
period, and in the nineteenth century the paste adopted assumed
the general English type. Bone-ash and Cornish china clay form
44 OLD CHINA
the standard constituents. Evidently, then, by contrast and test
the differences between old and modern Worcester can be dis-
tinguished by the careful student. The early pieces thrown on
the wheel were comparatively thick ; the cups had no handles.
The early handles were thin rolls of clay, later they were moulded.
Gilding was sparsely used with delicate sprigs of flowers as
decoration, and there was no factory mark. Chamberlain's
Worcester is another story of another factory. Just when Flight
took over the old works, one of his china painters began to think
of commencing business for himself. This was Robert Chamber-
lain, who with his brother Humphrey and Richard Nash, founded
in 1786 the Diglis Works, where Royal Worcester is still made.
Soon the high quality of his ware and the beauty of its decoration
secured not only the patronage of Royalty, but an increasing
amount of public support, and the gradual falling off in the
quality of the productions of the old factory enabled Chamberlains
to ultimately absorb Flight, Barr, and Barr. From 1798 to 1827
H. Chamberlain and Robert Chamberlain, juniors, were the
proprietors, with the addition of G. Boulton from 1804-1811. This
younger Chamberlain was, like his father, a painter, excelling in
portraits, one of which — the Princess Charlotte — secured the
cordial approval of the Royal Family.
In 181 L a great improvement was made in the paste or body
of the best productions, the result being an ideal, transparent,
but exceedingly costly porcelain. This was
*Por elT '' named the Regent body, and is distinguished
by its perfect homogeneity. It was, in fact,
the newly-adopted standard English porcelain refined. The
marks of Chamberlain's Worcester were constant and are easily
traced. The earliest are simply the name of the firm, usually
written in full, as " Chamberlain's," " Chamberlain's Worcester,"
with " 63, Piccadilly, London." Later, a crown over " Chamberlain's
Regent China Worcester," and " 155, New Bond Street, London,"
was adopted. Capital letters were also used. From 1840 to 1850
"and Co." was added, the mark being in italic writing, "Chamber-
lain and Co., Worcester," Chamberlain's in capitals, " Chamber-
lain and Co., Worcester, 155, New Bond Street," and later
" No. 1, Coventry Street, London." Another mark of the same
period was a crown surrounded by an oval ribbon, with " Chamber-
lain and Co., Worcester," in capitals. This last mark indicates
WORCESTER
45
the time when the old factory disappears, the whole of the stock
and materials being removed to the existing works, which were
remodelled and rebuilt in 1852. Here, then, we must leave Old
Worcester, but not without pride in its later developments. What
charm, what beauty, what perfection are still to be found in
Worcester ! Though different in type, the productions of the
factory, directed by Kerr and Binns, are worthy of every attention.
BRITISH MUSEUM.
CUP AND SAUCER.
Salmon^Scale Blue Ground.
Powdered Blue.
CUP AND SAUCER.
Apple-Green Ground.
Not Old China
yet.
Enamels by Bott successfully compete with the best periods of
Limoges and Sevres; ivory porcelain of wondrous softness and
finish; jewelled porcelain of unequalled
brilliancy and beauty. This is not Old China
yet. Grainger's Worcester must receive some
attention, because it was the third factory working there— early
in the nineteenth century. In 1808 Thomas Grainger, nephew of
Humphrey Chamberlain, started on his own account. He took
Mr. Wood as his partner. Both of them were trained china
painters and the firm was " Grainger and Wood." In 1812 Wood.
46 OLD CHINA
left, and Mr. Lee took his place, and the maik became " Grainger
and Lee." Then, when Lee retired, Grainger alone carried on
the bu.siness till 1839, when he died. Later, a company, " G.
Grainger and Co., manufacturers, Worcester," have carried on the
works. The mark is printed over the glaze, and usually enclosed
in a ribbon. The paste and glaze of Grainger's Worcester is of
good quality, but heavier than Chamberlain's owing to the thick-
ness of the body. The painting is over the glaze, and the flowers
show evidences of artistic treatment, though
_. the roses are inferior to the Derby roses. A
remarkable gros-bleu ground is, perhaps, the
m^ost characteristic product of this factory, and, viewed from the
inside through strong transmitted light, gives a striking illustra-
tion of the depth of the ground and the transparency of the paste.
The gilding is very skilfully done, in curves and arabesques, and
most of the pieces are marked. Visitors to the old factory have
placed on record accounts of the manufacture of Worcester figures,
but they never were a speciality. Indeed, it is a question whether
anyone has a really good collection of " Old Worcester figures."
We know the work of the chief china painters, such as Donaldson,
O'Neale, Fogo, and Baxter, though that knowledge is slight.
Amongst others, M. Solon has given illu,strations of actual
Worcester figures, seemingly beyond question. Yet, owing to the
absence of a definite factory mark and to the
_ difiiculty of applying the usual tests for
Worcester China, practically the field is open
to the intelligence, ingenuity, and application of some expert who
may be able to sift from Bow and Chelsea and Derby a class of
figures, unmarked, it may be, but unmistakable. Is the solution
to be found in the small painted or incised marks given as " work-
men's marks"?
Bott, the wonderful enamel painter of modern Worcester, has
-attained such a high reputation that a pair of vases decorated by
him are valued at the factory at 1,500 guineas.
Worth its Weight , a u 4- ocn -o ^^<
. -J . , and a ewer and basin at 350 guineas. Bott s
work will be priceless by-and-bye, though at
present it is not Old Worcester. How can it be identified ? The
Kerr and Binns' mark, " K. and B." on the top and " Worcester "
in a ribbon across the shield, partly cutting out the date, has in
ithe left-hand corner the late Mr. Bott's initials. It is only just to
WORCESTER
47
say that Kerr and Binns brought the productions of the factory to
a high degree of perfection, whether we consider body, glaze,
form, or decoration. The ivory porcelain is one of the specialities
of these works, and it has all the softness, beauty, and natural
tint of ivory itself, and, though only introduced by Mr. Binns in
1862, it increases in popularity and value as the years pass by.
C44m ue tCatfts
(^rAtnye^ Lee
JLco
h^oreesler
Later Marks.
Vases and covers, painted with exotic birds ; shape, hexagonal ;
dark-blue scale pattern, square mark, 11^ in. high, £630. Of
course, this pair is not to be compared with a
large vase about 20 in. high, for which the
Earl of Warwick is said to have given
£10,000. The companion vase was in the
possession of the late Mr. Henry Willett, of Brighton, and it was
for some time on exhibition in the local museum. This suggests
the thought that the British Museum and South Kensington
are the happy hunting-grounds of those who want to study
form, colour, glaze, and decoration. The specimens cannot be
handled, but a pleasant time can be spent to much advan-
tage, by those who wish to know, in studying the beautiful
pieces which are so well displayed to the public by those
who know. The best information is to be obtained by handling
and comparing actual pieces ; hence the value of open access to
the china cabinets of friends ; but, with such help as this book
tries to give, the museums will prove invaluable.
Under the
Hammer :
Going, Going,
Gone !
48 OLD CHINA
Returning to prices, which are not quite what they seem,
because much depends on the name of the collection, the company
The Astonishing P^^^ent at the sale, the desire to possess a
Value of certain piece, and the trade advertisement
Old China. i.- i. ,^ r
which results from expensive and extensive
purchases, there is still a rough but general guide as to values,
and it may be laid down as an axiom that fine Old China sells
itself. The difficulty is to get, there is no difficulty in selling.
In 1901 a fine Old Worcester cup and saucer, turquoise and gold
border, with dragons and flowers in colours, square mark, cost
£3 3s. At a moderate estimate its price would be trebled now.
Similarly, a vase and cover, painted with birds and flowers, in two
large and two small medallions, dark-blue ground, which then
cost £283 10s., would now be worth about £600. But, putting
aside estimates of present values, let us see what prices have been
paid. £91 for two cups and covers with saucers, square mark, is
about ten times the value in gold ! Again, a pair of jardinieres,
each painted with three compartments of exotic birds and flowers,
9 in. long, square mark, could not be cheap at £231 ; and one dish,
10 in. in diameter, centre painted with butterflies, the border
Tvith panels of exotic birds and butterflies, dark-blue and gold,
cost, under the hammer, fifty-two guineas. Another pair of cups
and saucers, two-handled, with exotic birds and insects in panels,
dark-scale blue and gilt decoration, were knocked down at £90 6s.
What is the value of a service ? Well, a dessert service, 121 pieces,
"with landscapes in panels, on dark mottled-blue ground, gilt, sold
for £194 5s., and a bowl 11 in. in diameter, exterior painted with
exotic birds, insects, and flowering trees, dark-blue scale pattern,
ground gilt, square mark, cost £152 5s. ; whilst a teapot and cover,
oviform in shape, with teapoy, or canister and cover, with similar
decoration, sold for £189. Worth more than its weight in gold !
Another service, or rather part of a dessert service, painted in
shaped panels with birds and foliage on dark-maroon ground, con-
sisting of one lli-in. oval-shaped dish, with scalloped rim and
fluted border, a pair of 9j-in. circular fluted dishes, a pair oval
sugar basins with covers, and twelve 7^-in. plates, sold for £379;
and one mug painted with Chinese figures, bouquets of flowers,
and insects in compartments, scale-blue ground, for £27 6s. A tea
service, mazarine-blue ground, oval panels with exotic birds and
foliage, gilt, crescent mark. Dr. Wall period, teapot and stand,
WORCESTER 49
teapoy, cake plate, five teacups and one odd teacup, cost £345 10s.
One plate, scale-blue, exotic birds, marked with a W, fetched ten
guineas ; whilst two oval-shaped dishes, fluted borders, dark scale-
blue ground, painted with exotic birds and insects, gilt, cost
one hundred guineas. Hundreds of other examples could be
given of prices — high prices — paid for fine Old Worcester ; but
the joy of collecting is found in the buying of good specimens,
on knowledge, without paying such large prices as those quoted.
50
OLD CHINA
CHELSEA.
CHELSEA has a beauty which is all its own, and the lovely
Chelsea figures in the Lady Charlotte Schreiber collection
at South Kensington are fine enough to make any collector
break the tenth commandment.
Very little information can be gleaned regarding the earliest
manufacture of porcelain at Chelsea. Probably when John
Dwight, the inventor of "the mysterie of
transparent earthenware," retired from the
business, other potters at Chelsea, Bow, and
other china works in or near London, took up the work and
gradually succeeded in the production of an artificial porcelain.
Old Chelsea
China.
The Earliest Chelsea MarK.
This was of a glassy body or paste, with powdered Oriental china
and a small proportion of white clay as the base. The early
CHELSEA 51
works did not last long. Limehouse was closed in 1750, and the
celebrated Battersea enamel factory in 1754. But before this
Chelsea had made a reputation. The noted milk-jug, with the
goat and the bee, is the first dated piece, having on the base the
incised triangle and "Chelsea, 1745," and it indicates that the
Chelsea factory had already reached to some degree of excellence.
In the same year the French makers applied for powers to estab-
lish a factory at Vincennes, and urged that it would counteract
the importation from England and Germany. Though Chelsea
is not named, no doubt it was referred to as " the most consider-
able." This is the more likely, when we consider the number of
fine specimens which still survive. Tradition puts the actual
date as 1730, and makes the Elers responsible for its first founda-
tion. In the London Tradesman, 1747, was a notice that the
Chelsea Works were producing imitations of Chinese and
Dresden china. In 1750 was another advertisement, stating
that N. Sprimont had succeeded Charles Gouyn in the manage-
ment.
Roquet, writing on the state of art in England at this date,
said : " In the neighbourhood of lyondon there are three or four
manufactories of porcelain — that of Chelsea
Chelsea in 1750 ,, , -ftt ■• j. 1
. , ^ IS tJie most considerable ; a rich patron bears
and later. ^
the expense of it, and an able French artist
furnishes or supervises the models and all that is manufactured
there." The Duke of Cumberland was the patron referred to, and
he gave an annual grant towards its support. Jacquemart, in his
book, " I,es Merveilles de la Ceramique," speaks of Chelsea : " De
1750 a 1765 elle avait acquis toute sa perfection par les soins d'un
etranger, M. Spremont. Les groupes, les vases ornementes
peuvent rivaliser avec ce que la France et la Saxe produisaient
de plus elegant." Under Nicholas Sprimont, who was an artist of
some note, the productions of the factory attained a particularly
high standard. Contemporary writers use striking terms in
describing the new porcelain. One who was allowed to see
Queen Charlotte's collection in Buckingham Palace stated, " I
beheld with admiration a complete service of Chelsea china, rich
and beautiful in fancy beyond description. I never saw any
Dresden near so fine." Even Horace Walpole was enthusiastic.
In 1763 he wrote: "I saw yesterday a magnificent service of
Chelsea china which the King and Queen are sending to the Duke
E 2
52 OLD CHINA
of Mecklenberg. There are dishes and plates without number, an
epergne, candlestick, salt-cellars, sauce-boats, tea and coffee
equipages, &c. In short, it is complete, and cost £1,200." What
would be the value of such a service now ? Why, a pair of vases
\\\ in. high were sold by auction a short time since for £609!
Public advertisements are valuable evidence of the kind of goods
made at Chelsea. Dated December 17th, 1754, the Public
Advertiser had the following : " To be sold by auction. All the
entire stock, bought from the proprietor's warehouse in Pall Mall,
consisting of snuff-boxes, smelling-bottles, and trinkets for
watches (mounted in gold and unmounted), in various beautiful
shapes, of an elegant design and curiously painted in enamel, &c."
Some of these trinkets are less than an inch in height. In the
same year, 1754, Mr. Hughes, ironmonger, Pall Mall, in a trade
advertisement, offered " compleat services of plates and dishes,
tureens, and sauce-boats, &c., several elegant epargnes for desarts,
several figures, and the greatest choice of branches with the best
flowers." These flowers were modelled and coloured after nature,
and they are now very rare. They were used in flowerpots,
grottoes, and in other ways for table decoration.
N. Sprimont continued the manufacture at Chelsea till 1768-9,
but, owing to a long illness in 1757 and 1758, the production was
^, ^ very limited for a time. Yet the next year,
N. Sprimont,
Chelsea. under a new lease, vigorous efforts were made
to reach the highest excellence, and so
successful were they that dealers surrounded the doors and
purchased the goods as fast as they were produced. The books
seem to have been kept with care during this period, and in an
early catalogue published in 1756 much information was given as
to the variety, nature, and cost of this porcelain. Sprimont's
health again failed in 1761, with the result that two years later
the works were offered for sale. However, it was only in 1769
that a sale was effected to a Mr. Cox, who the next year disposed
of the concern to William Duesbury, the proprietor of the
celebrated Derby china works. The receipt following is
interesting: " Reed., London, 5th Feby., 1770, of Mr. Wm. Dues-
bury, four hundred pounds, in part of the purchase of the Chelsea
Porcelain Manufactory and its appurtenances and lease thereof,
which I promise to assign over to him on or before the 8th
instant. — James Cox '"
CHELSEA 53
From this time to 1784, when the kilns were pulled down, the
Chelsea and Derby works were carried on conjointly, and the
removal of men and material, which had been
Chelsea— Derby, gradually eflfected, was completed. The
Derbj' china had become so popular that
Chelsea was outrivalled and dismantled, and the same fate befel
Bow in 1775, St. Giles's in 1777, and other works at Vauxhall and
Pedlar's Acre. Before Sprimont retired he had considerably
diminished the stock and materials, which accounted for the low
Early Chelsea Scent-Bottle.
price of £600 paid to him by Cox. In 1764 a sale took place :
"To be sold by auction, on the premises, some time in March.
Everything in general belonging to it, and all the remaining
unfinished pieces, glazed and unglazed; some imperfect enamelled
ditto of the useful and ornamental, all the materials, the valuable
and extensive variety of fine models in wax, in brass, and in lead ;
all the plaster moulds and others, the mills, kilns, and iron
presses ; together with all the fixtures of the different warehouses,
&c. N.B. — When everything is sold belonging to the manu-
factory, &c., and the large warehouse cleared, there is to be sold
at the Chelsea manufactory some most beautiful pieces of the
truly inimitable mazarine blues, crimson, and gold that
5A
OLD CHINA
Mr. Sprimont has thought deserving finishing, &c." One more
advertisement in the Gazetteer, or New Daily Advertiser, May
1769, seems to indicate that the previous sale was not a success :
" To be sold by auction in Charles Street on Wednesday, 17th
May, and following days." Then follows a catalogue of all the
curious and matchless pieces, consisting of beautiful vases,
antique urns, perfume pots, services of all kinds — most highly
finished in the mazarine blue, crimson, pea-green, and gold,
finely painted in figures, birds, fruit, and flowers, enriched with
gold and curiously chased. The models, mills, kilns, &c., were
again advertised. Cox practically bought the last group, with the
lease and goodwill, but he employed no potters, only a caretaker,
and after a short period Duesbury became the proprietor, and, for
a time, activity once more reigned at Chelsea. The names of
some of his hands are given, with their wages, and we shall find
some of these working, later, at Derby. About twelve persons
were employed : Gauron received 8s. 9d. per day ; Boarman or
Boreman, a painter of landscapes and sea-views, 5s. 3d. a day;
Wollams, 4s. 6d. ; Askew, 4s. 2d. ; Jenks or Jinks, Snowden,
R. Boyer, and Barton, each 3s. 6d. Painters and enamellers
were, as a rule, paid so much a day, except when they
worked at home, when fixed rates were paid for the work done.
II
CHELSEA 55
These are taken from the weekly bills, and are interesting
because they show the price paid for making the articles. For
example : One dozen and six " Fine Gentle
Products of the Man with a MufF," Is. 9d. ; one dozen and six
the Closing "Shephard Sheering of Sheep," Is. 9d.; six
"Arliquens," 7d., &c. Leaving out the work
prices the following pieces were commonly made at this period, and
they are most frequently to be found : Gentleman with a mufif,
shepherd shearing sheep, harlequins, antique jars with heads, ditto
with handles, bottles with ornamented handles, compotiers,
ornamented plates, season vases, season perfume jars, perfume
jars with Indian figures, jonquil vases with stag-head handles,
ornamental vases with Chinese figures, jars with dog and rabbits,
pigeon-house, perfume pots, perfume pots with boys and girls
dancing, Venus at her toilet, on large vases, perfume vases with
three goats' heads, strawberry compotiers, crimson-and-gold tea
services, birds, lambs, sheep, dogs, calves, &c. Besides these, a
variety of cupids figured on the list : Cupid as a letter-carrier,
booted and spurred, with a lamb, crying by an urn, forging
hearts, &c. Boys were represented catching squirrels, bird-nest-
ing, piping, with dogs, &c. Numbers of small seals were
reproduced, such as lions, lambs, and cocks, prettily modelled and
coloured.
This list is given at some length, because it may be useful in
helping to identify pieces of Chelsea, and, when taken in conjunc-
tion with other characteristics, will leave the collector no room
for doubt, even in the absence of the factory mark, generally an iv ^t-^ks
anchor in red or gold, or the Chelsea-Derby mark, the anchor i
combined with a script capital D. This last mark is usually taken
to indicate the Chelsea-Derby period, from 1770 to 1784 ; probably
it was also used at Derby when Chelsea patterns were reproduced.
The natural result followed the amalgamation ; the dominant
style of Chelsea was modified by the Derby influence, the rococo
forms disappeared in favour of simple outlines, and, generally, the
decoration adopted was Derby lapis-lazuli blue, with subjects
painted in compartments, and a very charming method of gilding
in stripes.
The early catalogues of Duesbury illustrate this. For example :
Elegant Etruscan vases, enamelled in compartments with a figure
of Shenston and fine blue ground striped with gold ; caudle cups
56 OLD CHINA
covers, and stands enamelled with festoons of green husks,
garland of coloured flowers, and fine blue and gold stripes, ewers
with Euask handles, classical figures in compartments with gold
stripes, flower-pots, green and gold, finely painted in compart-
ments with a landscape and figures. Some superb vases were
produced, beautifully enamelled with classical figures and land-
scapes : often a figure was painted on one side and a landscape on
the other. Thus we have the Three Graces and a landscape,
Pomona and Prudence and a landscape, and so on, or Virtue on
one side and Prudence on the other. The white unglazed
porcelain of the Chelsea first period develops into the biscuit of
the Duesbury period and culminates in Derby biscuit, which
probably excels any other biscuit china ever produced, even
Sevres. Duesbury produced large and small groups and figures
at Chelsea, such as the Three Virtues, and Jason and Medea before
Diana, but these were inferior to Derby.
^
/.
3.
Chelsea— Early MarKs.
In the magnificent collection of Lady Charlotte Schreiber at
South Kensington Museum there are groups and figures of
supreme excellence. If Chelsea produced
Chelsea Marks, only these it would deserve to be ranked
amongst the first factories of the world. It
is of the greatest importance that the beginner and even the
expert should know where to find the best examples of any
ceramic art, because however much one may read it is not so
educational as seeing and handling. Time spent with a definite
object in a museum is time well spent. Now, upon the bases of
nearly all the figures and groups mentioned the anchor in gold
may be found. Oftentimes it is small, but careful inspection will
CHELSEA 57
reveal it. It may be taken as the factory mark. Why and
exactly when it was adopted is not known. Two other factories,
Venice and Sceaux, produced soft paste porcelain and used the
anchor as a mark. The Venetian mark was in gold, red, or
blue. The Sceaux mark was painted in blue. Many of the
early Chelsea and Bow pieces were unmarked, and much con-
troversy has taken place regarding some of the marks found
upon early pieces. The incised triangle (1) was considered
a Bow mark, but the Goat and Bee jug had the incised triangle
and Chelsea. Both factories made similar figures, and, after all,
it may be left to the taste of the collector to assign these doubtful
pieces to either Bow or Chelsea, remembering that in either case
the incised triangle is a very early, probably the earliest, mark.
The marks (2) and (3) are also claimed by Bow and Chelsea. That
brings us to the first Chelsea anchor, a raised anchor upon an
embossed oval (4). It is in the highest degree imperative that
the collector vShould regard the mark, especially the gold anchor,
as only one element in identifying Old Chelsea. Beautiful models
are produced, with the typical figures and bocages, absolutely
true to pattern, and they are not at all rare. Caveat emptor!
They are hard paste, the gold anchor is a forgery ; but some
dealers even grind out the gold anchor, and submit the pieces to
the purchaser without a guarantee. Expensive articles should
always be accompanied by a guarantee, which should be required
from the dealer.
The mark alone is scarcely to be depended upon as an
evidence of age, because, in the same set, such early marks as the
raised anchor and the plain anchor, drawn in
Other Marks. ^^^^ are to be found. It appears difficult to
decide which is the older, so consideration
must be given to the workmanship, for later specimens which
have elaborate decoration may have the mark embossed, or in red
or gold. Now, the gold anchor, though not an absolute mark of
the best porcelain, is found on nearly every one of the fine figures
of Lady Charlotte Schreiber's collection at South Kensington. It
may well be that where gold is used in the decoration the gold
anchor was the mark, and that any colour, not only red, but
whatever was used for decoration, was applied as the mark. As
the colour of the mark in the earlier pieces seems to have been
varied at the will of the workman, so does the mark itself. In the
SS OLD CHINA
list will be seen varieties of form and many combinations, some
of which, marked (B), are claimed by the Bow factory ; but in the
absence of evidence, as has been said, the collector " pays his
SCEAVX ^ jJu*
1^ IS&-4- rj^ Jj, \i>
4. a ^r 5
The Anchor Marks.
money " for the rare piece of china, and " takes his choice,"
whether he assigns it to Chelsea or Bow. Without doubt, the
anchor is the true Chelsea mark, whether in gold, red, blue, or
CHELSEA
59
brown, but even in those early days marks and models were
copied, and many examples of so-called Chelsea are English
imitations. When William Duesbury purchased the Chelsea
Works in 1769, he used the anchor with a script D in gold.
Two examples are given, but the crown over the D and the crown
over the anchor were also used from 1773 to 1784 to commemorate
the visit of the King and Queen. In 1784 the final transfer to
Derby took place, but there is no evidence that these marks were
at once discarded. It is interesting to note that Sceaux (Seine)
and Venice used the anchor as a factory mark. The list itself
needs no further explanation. '
The octagonal plate in the illustration will serve very well as
a typical specimen of the first period of Chelsea. It is unmarked,
but to the connoisseur it is marked all over —
paste, glaze, and spur marks.
The paste is white, nearly cream-coloured,
in fact, separated milk gives exactly the same
tint. In the paste are a number of tiny black flecks or spots,
which are evident to the touch when the fingers are passed over
Ho-w to Identify
Old Chelsea.
The Paste.
it. The paste is soft and easily cut with a file ; so soft is it that
scarcely a mark is made if the finger-nail is rubbed on it. The
base-rim has been ground, and feels soft and smooth. The body
is thick and comparatively heavy, and it is chipped with ease —
that is, if you dig a knife into it with some force chips will fly off"
in flakes. When held up to a strong transmitted light several
6o OLD CHINA
translucent spots, called moons, are seen ; in ordinary light it is
opaque. The moons are caused by the use of glassy materials in
the paste or by the imperfect grinding and mixing of these
materials. Very great care was necessary in the firing in the
kiln, because owing to the fusible nature of the paste it was apt
to be melted, and therefore shapeless. These defects were
remedied by experience and time, yet even the very finest Chelsea
dishes, with lovely paintings of exotic birds, are heavy and
opaque, except in their thinnest parts, and, as may be seen at
South Kensington, many fine dishes have long cracks in the
glaze.
The glaze of Chelsea china is soft and easily scratched with
a file or the sharp point of a knife. It resembles thin, milky
glass, showing numerous abrasions where it
The Glaze. jj^s been rubbed against some harder sub-
stance ; this is noticeable on the angular
parts. On the glaze are the black, or rather dark, specks where
the paste penetrates through the glaze, which shows also a
number of tiny pits, as if the glaze has sunk into depressions in
the paste produced by firing. Like much of the Early Chelsea,
the decoration is copied from Chinese porcelain. The colours
are enamelled in red, blue, and green, touched with matt gold and
slightly pencilled in black. The spur-marks on the base are three
in number, and they show how the dish was supported in the
kiln. These marks are to be found on the bases of nearly every
piece of Chelsea — cups, saucers, plates, dishes. So much, then, for
a careful examination of a typical early specimen. Later, as the
paste was improved it lost its liability to warp when refired at a
lower temperature, and thus allowed enamel colours, again in
imitation of the Chinese, to be effectively used to produce the
richest effects. The Chinese powdered blue, mazarine blue, apple-
green, and many other coloured grounds were copied, with com-
partments or reserves left white, and then beautifully painted in
colours with figures, landscapes, classical subjects, flowers, and
birds. Chelsea produced an exquisite claret-coloured ground, and
also very beautiful mazarine blue, pea-green, and turquoise. The
latter vases offered a marked contrast to the earlier simpler forms
and decorations, being richly, even gorgeously, coloured, heavily
gilt, and having most elaborate rococo designs. In fact, Chelsea
fell successively under the influence of China, Dresden, Sevres,
CHELSEA
6i
and the so-called classical revival, and the indication of age is
more or less accurately given by the design arranged in this order.
In every stage, however, the enamels, being on a soft, artificial
body, sink in and become incorporated with the glaze, deriving
therefrom a beauty and durability all their own. From 1759
similar changes in colour and gilding took place in the other pro-
ductions of the factory, in the tea and other services, and, above
all, in the figures. The notable collection at South Kensington
shows the excellence of Chelsea figure-modelling and still more
of decoration. Were NoUekens, Bacon, Roubiliac the modellers ?
Were Boarman and Wollams the painters, at 5s. 3d. and 4s. 6d.
a day respectively, or was it before their time ? Boyer and Barton
are frequently given in the weekly bills as modellers at 3s. 6d.
(>2 OLD CHINA
a day each. Did they model any of the exquisite figures and
bocages which are the chef d'oeuvres of ceramic art, or did they
come later? Unfortunately, no definite information can be
furnished on these points, yet the Chelsea figures will remain
as a memorial of the work of Sprimont and Duesbury, and also
as the beau ideal of the Continental forger. How can these
forgeries be detected ? The model is right, and the gold anchor.
In the illustration of the Chelsea dish which was critically
examined reference was made to spur-marks. On the base of
figures there are other marks, called " thumb
"Thumb Marks." marks," made during the burning in the kiln.
Where each of the pieces came into contact
with the support, usually a tripod, it was robbed of its glaze on
those spots, so that there are three unglazed marks on the base
about the size of the tip of the little finger (in small figures). On
Chelsea Figure, showing on base Three Thumb Marks.
larger figures the marks are larger because the supports were
and they become veritable " thumb marks." See illustration.
The forgeries are hard paste, and though, as before-mentioned,
the anchor may be ground out and the thumb-marks ground in,
the paste is entirely different. Chelsea is soft paste always, but
it has varying degrees of softness — more, perhaps, than any other
factory. The heavy, thick, early paste of the first period was
easily chipped, could not be re-baked, and the figures made were
usually white. The lighter but still non-homogeneous body of the
second period probably saw the developments of coloured Chelsea
figures, but it was only in the third period, when the paste became
white, free from imperfections such as the black specks referred
to before, that that excellence was reached which made the
Chelsea factory famous whilst the high standard lasted. Again,
in the early figures the forms were comparatively simple, and the
CHELSEA
63
gilding slight. The colours used were much less brilliant than
they were later. The gold anchor seems to indicate gilding more
than anything else, for it is seldom found upon figures which are
not more or less lavishly gilt. In the sale catalogues of 1754 and
1759 slight reference is made to figures, but in 1769 we find that
" a variety of figures," very large and curious groups, particularly
two groups of " Roman Charity," is given in the advertisement.
Generally, then, the early figures were mostly white, then vSlight
colours and little gilt were applied, and from 1759 to 1769, the end
of Sprimont's connection with the factory, also from 1770 to 1784,
Duesbury's Chelsea-Derby period, Chelsea figures reached their
perfection. For choice, the period 1759 to 1769 produced the
finest figures made, especially portrait statuettes, modelled,
amongst others, by Nollekens, the father of the sculptor.
Roubiliac and Bacon are said to have been employed as modellers,
but many of the figures and groups were copied direct from the
Meissen (Dresden) models of Kandler and Acier. Examples of
Old Chelsea.
these copies may be seen in the British Museum. So Chelsea
copied Meissen, and used the gold anchor mark. Meissen now
copies Chelsea, and uses the gold anchor mark. The difficulties
of the collector are increased by the fact that when the public
demands an article it must have it ; if the article is not
immediately forthcoming it will be, so that a regular system pre-
vails of supplying the public with exactly what it wants, whether
it is Worcester, or Chelsea, or Oriental. It can be made !
64 OLD CHINA
The success of the Derby china was the chief cause of the
closing of the Chelsea works, but from 1770-1784 Chelsea still
produced remarkable groups, figures, vases, and services. The
following are generally identified with this period : King George
II., Shakespeare, in biscuit on a blue-and-gold pedestal ; the Three
Graces and two Cupids, in biscuit ; Milson, in biscuit ; group of
four Cupids ; a pair. Mars and Venus ; a pair, Bacchus and Ariadne.
Other and smaller figures of lambs, sheep, dogs, cows, calves,
deer, &c., with or without bocages, were of the same date as
statuettes, resembling Derby very closely, with the pretty but fra-
gile lace decoration.
Amongst the vases of this period are some of those painted
in compartments with landscapes on one side and classical figures
on the other. Such were Venus and Adonis,
Vases of this Eneas meeting Venus before he entered
Carthage, the Three Graces. These vases
were richly decorated with burnished gold, usually in stripes,
though some had fine coloured grounds. The gold stripes were
a very favourite form of decoration, and this fact should be
noted as being an indication of Chelsea Derby.
The services showed the Sevres influence predominant ; in
fact, the catalogues note " the very beautiful vSeve pattern," or
" the elegant Seve pattern." The ornamenta-
The Sevres tJQn closely follows the French designs, which
display the rose surrounded by a fine mosaic
border with rich gold chasing. Other pieces had flowers painted
au naturel, with festoons of green husks ; though now and then
the flowers are painted in green. In general style and shape the
classical Derby ideal gradually prevailed ; Derby blue, gold and
coloured stripes, biscuit flowers, masks, and medallions all indi-
cate the last period of Chelsea. Where is now the celebrated pair
of large octagon vases, two feet high, decorated with natural
flowers, finely enamelled with chased and burnished gold, and
painted with a female votary of Bacchus, and Innocence washing
her hands at an altar ? This must have
Sale Values of been a masterpiece. What would be its
* *^*' value now ? The whole of an issue of a
newspaper could be nearly filled with lists showing the high
value set upon Chelsea.
Extraordinary sums have been paid for really fine pieces
CHELSEA
65
which will always command good prices. The difficulty is to find
them, not to sell them, and the dealers will tell you that good Old
Chelsea sells itself. Without falling into a common error that a
fine specimen is a gold mine, it is well to know something about
the values, which are more relative than intrinsic. Take, for
example, vases. A pair of dark-blue ground, masks of Satyrs
forming handles, openwork foliage feet, gilt and painted with
butterflies and vines, £65; another pair with covers, formed of
three figures supporting a vase in relief, raised flower decoration,
£15 ; another pair, dark-blue ground. Satyr's head handles,
painted with insets and foliage, vine branches in high relief,
gilt, £33 10s.
-^•*^-:
A Group of Chelsea Birds.
" Time Clipping the Wings of Cupid," on base, decorations in
relief, £5 15s. 6d. ; pair, Children, on bases, with raised flower
ornamentation, £22 Is. ; Shepherd and Shep-
Groups. herdess with baskets of flowers, £8 18s. 6d. ;
ditto, with lambs and dogs, £32 10s. Figures,
Milton, £5 5s. ; Sportsman with dogs and bagpipe, flowers raised
in relief, £16 5s. 6d. ; Shylock, £8; Boy with gun and dog, and
another Boy holding a flower, £1 17s. 6d. ; Boy with flowers, on
66 OLD CHINA
white-and-gold scroll base, with a Girl to pair ; £11 ; Boy with dog
and Girl disarming Cupid, encrusted in flowers, £28. One oval
dish, maroon ground, compartments painted
Dishes. with birds, £7 15s.; one round, dark-blue
ground, gilt, with birds and insects in centre,
flower border, £16 16s.; one oval, fluted, painted with bouquets
and sprays of coloured flowers, £5; three oval, leaf-shaped, painted
with birds, butterflies, and trees, with another nearly similar,
£5 15s. 6d. At the present moment Chelsea is in demand. All
these would fetch much more than the prices given. Just one
more example to specially illustrate the use of transfer printing
at Chelsea : £4 was paid for a dessert service printed and
enamelled in green and blue, having vine leaves and grapes on
the border raised in white. The delicate outline only is furnished
by the transfer, whilst the colour is applied
Furnished by the , , j . • -i j . • . ,
_. , by hand. A similar decoration was noted
Transfer. -'
on Worcester. There was no necessity to send
to Iviverpool, where Sadler discovered the process of transfer
printing about 1750, because the Battersea Enamel Works at
York House used the process some four or five years later, and
the neighbouring potteries, such as Chelsea and Bow, were able
to avail themselves of the nearer facilities. Finally, the collector
having familiarised himself with the Chelsea style of decoration,
must not be misled by it. Other factories copied Chelsea, and a
similar decoration has been found on white Oriental porcelain,
which could easily withstand the comparatively low temperature
of the Chelsea kilns after being painted. Study well the fine
Old Chelsea in the museums.
BOJV 67
BOW.
THE date of the establishment of the Bow Porcelain Works
is not well known, but is usually given as 1730. The
patent secured by Edward Heylyn, or Heyleyn, a local
merchant, and Thomas Frye, a well-known painter, is dated
December 6th, 1744, and a later patent by Frye, November 17th,
1749, so that it is probable that Bow and Chelsea were almost
co-existent. The patent was for a new method of manufacturing a
certain material, whereby a ware might be made of the same nature
and kind, and equal to, if not exceeding in goodness and beauty,
china and porcelain ware imported from abroad. This importation
must have been chiefly from China. The
J . merchants, and even the sailors, realised the
immense superiority of Chinese porcelain over
anything of the kind produced in Europe, though this does not
traverse the fact that porcelain was imported from Germany in
increasing quantities as the years went on, but during the Augustus
Rex period — 1709-1726 — Bottcher's discovery of hard porcelain
was only emerging from the experimental stage. The Bow
factory has left evidence of its progress in 1760 in the shape
of a porcelain punch-bowl, 9 in. wide, painted
is in the British Musuem. From a statement
on the cover of the box containing the bowl we learn "that the
above factory was carried on many years under the firm of Messrs.
Crowther and Weatherby, whose names are known almost all
over the world. They employed about three hundred persons —
about ninety painters (of whom I was one) and about two hundred
turners, throwers, &c., were employed under one roof." "We shall
say something more about this later when we come to the sale of
the works to the firm mentioned by Thomas Craft in 1750.
Early Bow was very like early Chelsea, glossy in texture,
practically glass, which carried more or less white clay, — unaker, —
F 2
68
OLD CHINA
which was mixed with it. In other words, Bow was an artificial
porcelain, soft paste, with a glaze made from red lead, nitre, and
sand in varied proportions. The colours used
Early Bow. jn ^j^g underglaze decoration were, first, a
blue, to imitate the Oriental style, then
enamel colours, next the painting of figures, landscapes, and
flowers, which were often set out in reserved compartments,
which were left white for the purposes of J5uch decoration. Solon
himself, the greatest ceramic artist of our time, gives it as his
expert opinion that much credit is wrongly given to the early
manufacturer of porcelain for certain vivid and intense effects in
the colours employed by him. He holds that when the nature
and composition of the paste or body and of the glaze have been
determined, the enamel colours are simply purchased ready-
made from the enameller or chemist. For example, the zaflTer or
zapher, which gave the blue colour under the
The Zaffer, or glaze, was simply cobalt, mixed with three
times its weight of glass, and ground very
fine before being used by the china painter. In this relation we
Bow Pattern.
note that in China the blue under-glaze, owing to the failure of
the supply of cobalt, became sometimes of inferior quality, and at
another time a very superior blue pigment was used, again a
cobalt blue. Large quantities of blue-painted ware were manu-
factured at Bow, and sold at cheap rates for ordinary household
use. The blue was in the early days the only colour which would
stand the intense heat of the firing Jrrthe kiln, an grand feu, but,
BOW
69
again, owing to the blue being applied to a soft paste, a certain
loss of sharpness and outline definition occurred, which was
referred to in Worcester.
The blue applied in decoration to Bow china is always under
the- glaze, and the designs are painted on the biscuit, so that
when the piece was dipped into the glaze
How to Recognise
before its final firing the blue almost invari- .'
White°and-Blue - 1
Bow. ably ran, so that the glaze acquired a very ,'
slight bluish tinge. In fact, we might go|
further and say that Bow glaze has this bluish tinge as a
Bo'W Patterns.
characteristic. The other colours and the gold were applied over
the glaze by painters and gilders. Then the china is baked again
in a kiln at a much lower temperature. It follows that whilst
70
OLD CHINA
these enamel colours and the gold gradually get rubbed off by
use, the blue, being under the glaze, is only affected when the
glaze Itself is destroyed, so that practically the blue is
imperishable.
The patterns or designs on Old Bow are principally of Chinese
landscapes, flowers, such as the hawthorn, chrysanthemum, and
peony, as shown in the illustration. These and
The Patterns or others, such as hanging branches of willow
leaves, were in the early pieces always painted
with a brush. On examining any collection the observer will not
fail to notice that amongst the earliest productions were many
Bow Inhpot.
examples in plain milky white, with raised or embossed white
flowers, directly imitating hlanc dc Chine. Early figures were
white with good modelling, as tested by the fine work in the
faces and hands. Other patterns in blue included sprig decoration
in various styles. By a sprig is meant a small twig, shoot,
or spray of leaves and flowers, and the term " sprigged " is
constantly used in the various descriptions of ware made at
the Bow factory. Hence we have bud sprigs, sprigged tea
sets and dinner services, Dresden sprigs, partridge services,
dragon services, Newark pattern, and dolphin pickle stands, all
in blue.
The embossed flowers in white were another form of sprig
decoration which was not confined to Bow, but was common to
early St. Cloud, Chantilly, and Dresden. The
_, . ^..^ pattern was moulded ; that is, the mould was
Flowers m White. *^ ' '
filled with the body or paste in its soft state,
then the mould was pressed against the object or piece to be
decorated, and by the aid of a thin paste or slip the moulded
ornament was so attached as to form an integral part of it,
showing no mark of joining. This process took place before the
baking in the kiln.
The Bow works were acquired, as before noted, by Weatherby &
Crowther in 1750. At this time the factory was named New
Canton. There are a few specimens which bear the inscription,
" Made at New Canton " — see the inkpot in the illustration. The
account books of the firm from 1750 to 1755, and the memoranda
of John Bowcocke, the manager, in or about 1756, give a fund of
information as to the objects that were manufactured and of the
current prices for which they were sold, besides being useful for
the purposes of identification by the collector. Such specimens
as "sprigged salad bowls" for 12s. were not
Original Prices of , _ , , 1 j 4. 4.1.
B Chi dear. Other pieces were sold at the same
reasonable prices : sprigged boats, 6s. a pair ;
cooks, 2s. each ; two harlequins, 7s. ; gentleman and lady, 9s. ;
pair of boy and girl, small fiddler and companion, tambourines,
octagon partridge-plates — which we should term quail-pattern —
vine-leaf milkpots, white boards, upright pint mugs painted with
a fine landscape pattern, enamelled partridge coffee-pots, 9s. each ;
white men with salt boxes, mustard and cream ladles with small
(boles) bowls and long handles, enamelled roses, green leaf candle-
sticks and white ditto, white branch candlesticks, enamelled
pierrots (peros), at 6s. each; shepherds, 7s.; shepherdess, 9s.;
pair Dutch dancers, 9s.; boy and girl, 12s.; Paris cries, 6s.;
woman with chicken, 7s. ; bucks and does, sets of blue teas
72 OLD CHINA
(probably four pieces), 2s. lOd, ; also printed teas ; two sprigged
and enamelled dessert (dishes), 15s.; dolphin pickle stand, 5s.;
white basin and cover, 3s. ; blue printed mugs, 5s. ; cock plates
after the Chinese style, coloured squirrels, knife handles, Dresden
flowers, &c.
The annual accounts of the Porcelain Company's trade for
the year 1754 show the total sales, including book debts, to be no
less a sum than £18,115! The steady increase of the business is
shown by the fact that the output was nearly doubled in five years,
1750-55. This opens a speculative thought, that either Bow was
largely used for domestic purposes, and so had but a short life, or
that many pieces of Bow are classified under other factories.
The early specimens of Bow were often distorted, spotted,
crazed, and very nearly spoiled in the firing, but this was during
the more or less experimental stage of the
_ , , _ manufacture. Neither Heylyn nor Frye were
Specimens of aow. ■' ■' ■'
potters ; indeed, they had to procure their
workmen from Staffordshire. In 1753 the Birmingham Gazette
advertised : " This is to give notice to all potters in the blue-and-
white potting way, and enamellers on china ware, that by applying
at the counting-house at the china works near Bow they may
meet with employment and proper encouragement according to
their merit ; likewise painters brought up in the snuffbox way,
japanning, fan-painting, &c., may have an opportunity of trial,
wherein if they succeed they shall have due encouragement.
N.B. — At the same house a person is wanted who can model small
figures in clay neatly." In the same year the Bow China Ware-
house was opened, near the Royal Exchange,
Chi w h ^^ Cornhill, London, with a back door facing
the Bank. In 1762, Weatherby, one of the
partners, died, and next year John Crowther, of Cornhill, china-
man, became bankrupt, and all of the stock was sold by auction,
curious figures, girandoles, branches for chimney-pieces, finely
decorated with figures and flowers, knife and fork handles {see
illustration), dishes, compotiers, dessert services, with the fine old
partridge and wheatsheaf patterns, &c. Crowther, however, con-
tinued the Bow Works, and after a time opened another warehouse
in St. Paul's Churchyard ; but Bow had failed, as Chelsea did, to
satisfy public taste, which was turned towards Derby, and in 1775
the entire stock, including moulds, tools, and machinery, was sold
BOW
73
to William Duesbury, who removed them, next year, to Derby.
Betew, a dealer in curiosities, in Old Compton Street, speaking to
Nollekens, the sculptor, circa 1780, says : " There were some clever
men who modelled for the Bow concern, and they produced
several spirited figures: Quin in FalstafF; Garrick in Richard;
Frederick, Duke of Cumberland, striding triumphantly over the
Pretender, who is begging quarter of him ; John Wilkes, and so
forth." Nollekens replies : " Mr. Moser, who was keeper of our
academy, modelled several things for them."
Bow^ Knife Handles.
Certainly, some of the Bow figures were very fine, though
they differed from Chelsea in having less gilding and a peculiar
slight bluish tint in the glaze, to which notice
Characteristics of jjas been previously drawn. Opinions differ
°^* with regard to the body of Bow porcelain.
Jewitt says : " The Bow paste is exceedingly hard, and the frac-
ture very close and compact, consequently the pieces, as a rule,
are very heavy for their size, but many of the cups and saucers
are almost of eggshell thickness. The paste is white, and
only moderately hard. In ordinary light the cup is perfectly
opaque, but with a strong transmitted light the upper part of the
cup and the bottom are translucent. The same feature may be
6
74 OLD CHINA
noted in many pieces of Old Bow; the opacity is due to its
thickness.
The glaze is thick, and appears to have dripped down on the
pieces before they were fired, so that though the bases were
ground down, there is a certain unevenness
The Glare. ^i^jch can be plainly felt on the base inside
the rim. Similarly, on the figure the glaze is smooth, but thick in
parts, especially towards the base. On the cup the sharpness of
the embossed sprigged work is considerably modified by the
thickness of the glaze, which fills up, though it does not bury, the
pattern. On both there are tiny black spots, due to smoke or to
the incomplete combustion of the wood which was used for firing.
Hence, John Bowcocke's note that " All handled chocolates and
cofiees and handled teas are to be burnt with covers," which
meant that they were to be so enclosed as to prevent discoloura-
tion. Another note by the same hand bears on this point :
" Observe in the burning of the biscuit ware that dishes and plates
hould be burnt in new cases, and only one in each case, as when
two are burnt in one another it is certain that one is always bad."
In 1867 excavations were made for some public works
on the site of the old Bow factory, and a great quantity of
broken fragments, of old biscuit, old painted
** *^.j* ^^ blue, and a very few with green leaves
and lake flowers, were discovered. These
broken bits were of considerable interest because they helped
to verify the products of the works, and to identify, not only
the paste and glaze, but, in a degree, the decoration. A
large number of broken saggars, or cases of baked earthenware
used to contain the china and to protect it from the flame and
ashes of the kiln, were also found.
Some connoisseurs are of the opinion that the embossed
decoration on old Bow is so entirely charming and so nearly
perfect as to excel all other ornamentation,
„, , „* ***" and also that the brown-edged services for
on Old Bow. ^
household use, with the partridge or quail
pattern, are also superior to any services having a similar pattern,
such as the Oriental. Whether this is so or not is debatable.
This much is true, that genuine pieces of Bow are much sought
after and command high prices. The colour painting or enamel-
ling over the glaze with red and green, and, later, with yellow and
BOW
75
blue, and also the gilding, are decidedly quieter in tone than
Chelsea. In the absence of other guiding marks it is worthy of
note that in early Bow pieces the gold was matt, not burnished.
An inspection of the specimens in the London museums will
illustrate and enforce these facts. When, however, we look for
guidance in the white statuettes, such as Kitty Clive (see illustra-
tion) as "Mrs. Root," and the companion figure, Woodward, the
Kiity Clive as "Mrs. Root."
actor, as " The Fine Gentleman," we find divided counsels. Bow
or Chelsea, which ? The answer is to be found in the tinge of the
white. Chelsea has the warmer cream-colour glaze. Then, again,
" The Marquis of Granby," " John Wilkes," " General Wolfe," and
others have claimants from both factories, and may have been
made in both, but there is no doubt that Bow produced fine
figures. Such evidence as that of Betew, the dealer, in Old
//
76 OLD CHINA
Compton Street, given about 1780, cannot be ignored, and he
definitely states to NollekenvS, the sculptor, that they were made
at Bow. The entries in the note-book of John
, . _ ^ Bowcocke, before mentioned, makes it evident,
John Bowcocke. ' ' '
too, that transfer printing was used as a form
of decoration at Bow. It would be interesting to know why the
statement that this transfer printing was done by Sadler, of
I,iverpool, should ever have been made. Horace Walpole, in
1755, speaks of the Battersea transfer printing as being done there
with copper plates, and no reasonable doubt can be entertained
that the Bowcocke entries — "one pint printed mug, one half -pint
ditto, a set compleat of the second printed teas " — refer to the
process in vogue at Battersea, which would be the same for china
as for enamel. It is easy to imagine a Battersea workman going
to the Bow factory for such work, or even Bow china being sent
to Battersea for decoration, but, Liverpool, never!
In the list given those marks which are indicated by C are
equally claimed by Chelsea, so that what has been stated pre-
viously must be the deciding factors. The
Bow Marks. mark with Br. has been found on Bristol,
painted in blue landscapes with embossed
flowers and birds. The diflference between the hard porcelain of
Bristol and the soft of Bow will more easily be determined. The
two marks with Scr. are scratched in the paste or painted in
black. Cups, saucers, salt-cellars, butter-boats, and other small
pieces were sometimes marked with variations of the arrow and
circle. Probably the mark with ly H over it is Longton Hall
and not Bow at all. The monogram of T. Frye will be recognised,
T with F reversed, or F alone. He was not only one of the first
proprietors of the works, but also a painter and mezzotint
engraver, whose engravings are marked by his monogram. His
two daughters were china painters at Bow, and one of them, Mrs.
Willcox, was in 1759 employed by Josiah "Wedgwood. Tebo was a
modeller, and some specimens with his mark are ascribed to
Bristol. This is not unlikely, for many of the old china painters
and modellers were migratory, and there seems to be no reason
why Tebo should not have worked at both factories. Generally
speaking, whilst Chelsea had a factory mark, the anchor, Bow had
none. The anchor and dagger mark, varying in size and in
shape, is commonly avSsigned to Bow, having been frequently
, \
BOW 77* \^^
found on specimens bearing every characteristic of that factory.
Just recently I saw two beautiful Bow figures with this mark
in red-
^\ -E^ f$ <t
r f
Bow MarKs.
In giving examples of prices given for Old China it would be
easy to enlarge on a few extraordinary sums paid for elaborate pieces.
A pair of Bow figures, at the Maclyaren sale,
The Value of were sold for £400 ; but such figures and prices
ow na. ^^^ ^^ ^^^^ ^^ ^^ prices for Chelsea at Lord
H. Thynne's sale, where one pair of vases with dark-blue ground and
figure subjects fetched £3,255, and four mottled crimson vases,
painted with the "Seasons" and the Elements, £5,400. However,
to the collector comes the consolation that Old China is rising
still in value, and such is the eagerness displayed that a veritable
78 OLD CHINA
campaign of hunting after it has begun. Recently, a Bow figure,
with the dagger and anchor mark, shown in the list as being also
claimed by Chelsea, sold for £55, whereas a few years ago a figiire
similar in size — " The Thames Waterman " — only realised £5, and
the " Bee Jug " only £3 3s., whilst £3 5s. was paid for a figure — a
Lady with a basket of flowers. To-day such prices would be
doubled. When Bow pieces of undoubted authenticity with
regard to mark, decoration, and paste are ofi'ered for sale, the
competition for them is always keen. A dealer whom I know had
secured four very good Chelsea figures and one Bow group.
Amongst his clients was a lady, an expert, and a keen collector,
but of limited means. She could not buy the lot, but she went
home happy in the possession of the Bow group — a goat and two
cupids. What would be paid now for a teapot, two tea and two
coffee cups, and three oval cups, all embossed with the hawthorn
sprig decoration ? If in good condition, a cup is now worth £1,
yet the lot was formerly sold for £1 10s., and that sale was a
few, very few, years ago.
" The Four Seasons," £36 ; Neptune, on a base, decorated
with shells, £12; a Drummer and a Piper, a pair, £48; "Flora,"
£10 ; a Boy and a Girl, with bird and dog, a
Bow Figures. pair, £10 10s.; Lion and Lioness, £ 10s. 10s.;
Boy and Girl, with fife and dog, a pair,
£10 10s. ; America, one of four continents, £16 16s. ; Boy and
Girl, a pair, in bocages, with nozzles for candles, £21 ; Boy and Girl,
with bagpipes, dog, and flowers, a pair, £16 ; " The Four Elements,"
£34 ; Man and Woman, with pipe, tambourine, triangle, and raised
flowers, £10 10s.; Mars and Bellona, a group, £30; Chinaman,
child, and monkey, in bocages, with companion group, £42 ; Har-
lequin and Lady, with hurdy-gurdy organ and bagpipes, seated
under bocages, with nozzle for candle, £19 19s. ; Lady and
Gentleman, with flowers and fruit, £38; another "Four Seasons,"
£35 ; Girl, with flowers in her lap, on a base with raised flowers,
£15 15s. ; Parrots, a pair, perched on stumps, holding fruit, base
with raised flowers, £33 ; Boy playing with a drum, gilt and raised
flowers, modelled by Tebo, £16 16s.
Salt-cellars, a pair, painted with bunches of flowers, with raised
shells, £10 ; candlesticks, a pair, with amorini
dogs, birds, and flowers, £7 ; cream jug, flowers
in relief, mark triangle impressed, £25 4s. ; inkstand, with vSandbox,
BOW 79
candlestick, and pentray, £17; vases, a set of three, painted with
flowers and insects, mask handles and raised flowers, £27 ; cream
jugs, two "Goat" and "Bee" (Chelsea?), £16 16s.
The last words on Bow are a quotation from the original
specification, when Heyleyn and Frye took out their patent for its
manufacture in 1744 : " The material is an earth, the produce of
the Chirokee nation in America, called by the natives unaker, the
propertys of which are as follows, videlicet, to be very fixed,
strongly resisting fire and menstrua, is extreamly white, tenacious,
and glittering with mica. The manner of manufacturing the said
material is as follows : Take unaker, and by washing separate the
sand and mica from it, which is of no use ; take pott ash, fern ash,
pearl ash, kelp, or any other vegetable lixiviall salt, one part of
sands, flints, pebbles, or any other stones of the vitrifying iind ;
one other part of these two principles form a glass in the usual
manner of making glass, which when formed reduce to an impal-
pable powder. Then mix to one part of this powder two parts of
the washed unaker, let them be well worked together until
intimately mixed for one sort of ware ; but you may vary the
proportions of unaker and glass ; videlicet, for some parts of
porcelain you may use one-half unaker and the other half glass,
and so in different proportions, till you come to four unaker and
one glass."
Similarly the glaze is described : " Take unaker forty pounds,
of the above glass ten pounds, mix and calcine them in areverbera-
tory ; then reduce, and to each pound when
f ^tir*' Gi *"* reduced (to powder) add two pounds of the
above glass, which mUvSt be ground fine in
water, and left of a proper thickness for the ware to take up a
sufiicient quantity. When the vessells, ornaments, &c., are dry,
put them into the kiln in cases, burn them with a clean wood fire,
and when the glaze runs true lett out the fire, and it is done, but
must not be taken out of the fire till it is thorough cold." This
approximates to the description of artificial porcelain, soft paste,
which is an artificial combination of various materials agglomerated
and made translucent by the action of fire. Bow and Chelsea
certainly began by using glass as a medium to hold more or less
clay, and endless combinations of alkalies, lime, sands, marls, and
other ingredients were used in the various early factories which
sprang into existence within ten years — 1745-1755.
8o OLD CHINA
DERBY.
WILLIAM DUESBURY, the founder of the Derby factory,
was a native of Longton, Staffordshire. As with all of
the early factories, some obscurity surrounds the date at
which porcelain was made at Derby, but 1753 is usually accepted,
though Bradbury states that " porcelain was produced in Derby
soon after its introduction into Europe, and William Duesbury
established his classic factory in the town in 1750." Further,
Duesbury himself, in the note-books kept at his enamelling
establishment in London from 1751-3, mentions " Derby figgars."
Pilkington, writing in 1789, says: "About forty years ago the
manufacture of porcelain was begun by the late Mr. Duesbury,
This ingenious artist brought it to such perfection as, in some
respects, to equal the best foreign china. The ornamental part of
the business was, at first, almost solely attended to, but, the
foreign demand being much interrupted by the last war, the
proprietor turned his thoughts to the manufacture of useful
porcelain." Sampson Hancock, in "The Story of Old Crown
Derby China," in 1894, gives evidence in the same direction. He
remarks : " My grandfather was one of the
"D b FicB " ^^^^ apprentices of William Duesbury, wore
than 150 years ago, and he died at the age of
ninety-nine." The honour of making the first " Darby figgars "
must be given to Andrew Planche, a modeller of small articles in
porcelain, such as cats, dogs, sheep, lambs, &c. There were
pottery works at Cock Pit Hill, Derby, from about 1720, financed
and afterwards owned by John and Christopher Heath, bankers
and property owners. Planche had no kiln, so his wares were
burnt in a neighbouring pipemaker's oven.
Duesbury, who at one time had been toy-figure maker at the
Cock Pit Hill Works, entered into an agreement of partnership
with John Heath and Planche, by which Heath was to finance the
concern by paying £1,000 into the business, "to be employed in
DERBY
8i
common between them for the carrying on of the art of making
china wares." A third of the profits was to be paid to Heath
until the thousand pounds were repaid. The remaining profits
were to be divided amongst the partners, "share and share alike."
It is doubtful whether this agreement was ever executed, for
Planche does not again appear, and the firm was known as
" Duesbury and Heath." It was in this year, 1756, that Duesbury
returned to live at Derby, and from this time onward the history
of the factory is quite clear. At first only small figures were
made, with smelling bottles and other small ornaments, but,
Auction held
in London.
Cup and Saucer— DarR-Blue Border. MarK : Chelsea-Derby.
gradually, yet surely, Derby china became popular, and the work
extended until over seventy persons were employed. Large
consignments were sent to London from the
works on the Nottingham Road beyond St.
Mary's Bridge. Then, in December, 1756, an
auction was held in London by order of the Derby Porcelain
Manufactory. A curious collection was submitted : Fine figures,
jars, sauce-boats, services for desserts, and a great variety of other
useful and ornamental porcelain after the finest Dresden models.
Two interesting facts are gathered from this. The first shows
that Derby rivalled the Chelsea and other early factories by
adopting auction sales as a means of placing their goods before
the public. The second indicates the adoption of the Dresden
models, which accounts for the adoption of the crossed swords in
blue as a mark on the early Derby figures. In these days we
should possibly use a stronger term than adoption, for the early
Derby figure-makers were certainly close copyists of form,
colour, decoration, and mark.
G
82 OLD CHINA
In 1758 the factory was enlarged, and the number of workmen
increased. This was partly due to the acquisition of the Longton
Hall factory by Duesbury, who seems to have been a keen
business man, buying out his competitors whenever an oppor-
tunity arrived. Going on to 1763, we find that further large
Double-Handled Cup and Saucer— DarK'Blue Border.
Mark : Chelsea-Derby.
supplies were again forwarded to London for sale, and as the
prices were stated comparisons can be made between then and
now. The following list will give a good idea
jj - of the objects produced at Derby at this
period, and it may be noted that Derby runs
in periods, which will be dealt with later : Figures — Large
Britannias, 36s. ; second size Hussars, 12s. ; large Pigeons, 7s. ;
small Rabbits, 2s. ; Chickens, 2s. ; large Quarters of the Globe
(four figures), £2 ; Shakespeares, £2 2s. ; Miltons, £2 2s. ; Bucks
on Pedestals, 2s. 6d. ; Jupiters, £3 8s. ; Ledas, 36s. ; Europas, 36s. ;
Bird-catchers, 12s. 6d. ; second-size Boys, Is. 6d. ; small Baskets,
2s. 6d. ; Mars, £3 8s. ; Inkstands, £2 2s. ; Minerva, the Muses, the
Elements, Diana, Spanish Shepherd, &c., at similar small prices.
The value to-day would be at least seven or eight times as great,
and the collector of " Derby figgars " finds his work more difficult
and more expensive, because of the general appreciation of the
work of the old china modellers and artists, many of whom were
men of talent, though some were fops who excelled in " the nice
conduct of a clouded cane," and others illustrated " the black side
of Bohemia."
DERBY 83
•
The firm now was known as the Derby China Company, and
the figures given as amongst its early productions continued to be
made right onwards to 1848. From the
_ , „ . , histories of Chelsea and Bow we have gathered
£arlT Catalogues. °
that in 1770 and 1776 respectively Duesbury
bought up these works, with their plant, models, and moulds, &c.,
carried on the Chelsea works until 1784, when the stock and plant
were removed to Derby. The eight years, 1776-1784, distinguished
the Chelsea-Derby period, when similar objects were produced at
Chelsea and Derby, both bearing the same mark. Besides the
figures, various useful porcelain wares were produced which found
much favour with the public. There were blue fluted (sauce)
boats, mosaic, sage-leaf, and fig-leaf boats of difierent sizes,
caudle cups, blue strawberry pots, octagon fruit plates, vine-leaf
plates, tea and coffee services, flower vases, Chelsea jars, sheep,
both standing and sitting, butter-tubs, honeycomb jars and pots,
Chelsea and Dresden pattern candlesticks, roses, sunflowers,
boys, bucks, jars, and beakers, &c. Duesbury
Assumed the Entire j ^-1 -• j. r • -i-ron
assumed the entire management, for in 1780
Management. °
the Heaths failed in some financial crash, and
the stock of the Derby Pot Works was sold by auction. Evidently
the partnership between them had been previously dissolved, the
capital advanced by Heath had been repaid, so that Duesbury was
not involved. Such, indeed, was his success that he engaged the
best artist he could secure, and in order to improve the modelling
he engaged apprentices for that branch of the work, as well as for
the painting and repairing. The increased output resulted in the
opening of a London warehouse in Bedford Street, Covent Garden,
for both Chelsea and Derby china, where an exhibition of beauti-
ful and elaborate works commanded a ready and lucrative sale.
Not only so, but auction sales took place at intervals, and in the
later catalogues the sale price is attached to each article. A few
examples from the catalogue of May, 1781, will show what was
made, and the marked prices : Complete set
jygj * of tea china, waved, shanked, enamelled with a
border of green flowers and gold edge, £3 3s. ;
six French-shaped chocolate cups and saucers, enamelled with
festoons of green husks and pink-and-gold border, 18s. ; one small-
size group. Music, in biscuit, £1 Is. ; one pair of the Elements,
groups — Air and Water — and four standing Seasons, in biscuit,
G 2
84
OLD CHINA
£1 18s.; elegant Etruscan vase, enamelled in compartments, a
dessert service, enamelled with roses, festoons of green husks, and
pink-and-gold border, consisting of twenty-four plates, three large
oblong compotiers, four round, two heart-shaped, and four small
oblong ditto, and a pair of cream bowls, covers, stands, and
spoons, £13 2s. 6d. ; an elegant Seve (Sevres) pattern dessert
service, enamelled with roses and rich mosaic and gold border,
having in addition to the pieces in the last service a large plate
with a foot for the centre, £30 9s. ; one pair of beautiful oval jars,
the figures representing Apollo and Agrippina lamenting over the
ashes of Germanicus, £6 6s. ; one group of four cupids, in biscuit,
37s. ; one beautiful figure of Shakespeare, in biscuit, and fine blue-
and-gold pedestal, 21s.; one pair satyr-head drinking mugs,
enamelled and gilt, 8s., &c.
A Fine Derby Vase. Crown=Derby MarR in Gold.
Jewitt remarks of these sale catalogues, " I conceive nothing
could more completely'show the character of the goods, ornamental
as well as useful, which at that time were the staple productions
of the Derby works. It cannot, I opine, but be of immense use to
collectors in assisting them to correctly appropriate and date their
examples." The next catalogue is of the year 1785— "China for
DERBY 85
Sale by the Candle at Mr. William Duesbury's Warehouse in
Bedford Street, Covent Garden, at six of the clock in the afternoon."
The 'selling prices were printed in the catalogue, but the prices
realised were only about one-half of the printed ones. If space
permitted, the whole of the catalogue could be given, with advan-
tage to the collector of old Derby. However, a few examples must
suffice from the 198 lots submitted. Lot 1, a Tythe Pig group, one
pair of large Gardeners, one pair of Jupiter and Juno, one pair
of Harlequin and Columbine, and two pairs of Basket Boys, priced
at £3 lis. The present value of this lot would be about £50, and
there would be keen competition for it. Lot 4, a pair of large
Singers, one pair of sitting Pipe and Guitar Figures, one pair of
less ditto, one pair of Sporting Figures, and twelve Boys, £3 17s.
The same price, about £50, could be secured for these -^pieces
to-day.
The speciality of the Derby works was the biscuit figures.
The secret of their manufacture was discovered and sedulously
preserved at the factory. Unglazed white
^ J figures of quite a different quality, simply the
ordinary ware in the biscuit stage or state,
are not uncommon, but the Derby biscuit was a finished production
— fine, sharp, delicate, often exquisite in modelling, and very
smooth and soft to the touch. In these qualities Derby figures
have never been surpassed — scarcely ever have they been equalled,
and then only by Sevres. The same remarks apply to the gold
and the blue decoration, which were brought to a high state of excel-
lence in lustre and beauty. This " deeply, darkly, beautifully blue "
was a miracle of colour, here again only rivalled by the celebrated
blue de Rot of Sevres. But to return to the
J list for a few more samples will be helpful.
Figures : Two Cupid groups, one pair Bacchus
and Ariadne, one pair of pheasant figures, and twelve Boys,
price in 1785, £5 14s. ; a pair of figures, Shakespeare and Milton,
£3 3s. ; two second size Dianas, one pair of Piping Shepherds, one
pair of Large Gardeners, one pair of Sporting Figures, and a pair
of Mars and Venus, £4 15s. ; a figure of Andromache, one pair of
figures, Diana and Apollo, one pair of Boys riding on goat and
Panther, and two pairs of small Singers, £6 Is. 6d. ; a pair of
Madonna groups and a pair of Sitting Fruit and Flower figures,
£3 6s. ; and so on — grotesque Punches, FalstafF, Neptune, Jason
86
OLD CHINA
and Medea before Diana, group of Poetry, Music, Britannia, the
Virtues, Harlequin and Columbine, Welsh tailors, at the same
reasonable prices. Services : Tea set, double
Services. shape, enamelled with roses, festoons of green
husks, and purple-and-gold border, forty
pieces, £5 5s. ; tea set, Devonshire shape, enamelled with roses
and richly finished in fine blue and gold, forty-one pieces,
£10 10s. ; another, same shape, roses, festoons of red husks and
Biscuit Figure.
' The Gardener," by Spengler.
green-and-gold borders, forty-one pieces, £5 5s. ; breakfast
set, fluted, enamelled fine blue and gold, eighteen pieces,
£3 18s. Compared with modern prices these sets appear dear, but
it must be remembered that the painting and gilding were done by
artists whose names have in many cases come down to us as the
DERBY 87
most distinguished amongst the painters of china, and whose
works are now eagerly purchased by collectors. A beautiful com-
plete dessert service, enamelled with roses and fine blue-and-gold
borders, consisting of twenty-four plates, thirteen comporteers
{sic), one pair of cream bowls, covers, stands, and spoons, listed
at £26 5s., would be worth — how much ?
Transfer printing was introduced into Derby in 1764 by
Richard Holdship from Worcester, but authentic examples are
very rare, which seems to indicate that Duesbury found it more
advantageous to continue the hand-painted
Transfer Printing, decoration. Though there was an agreement
between the two parties, by which Holdship
contracted to allow the full use of his patent, and to print on all
china sent to him for £100 paid down and £30 annually, frequent
complaints were made by him that insuflScient work was provided.
Holdship also agreed to supply sufficient quantities of soapy rock
at fair prices, used in the making of china or porcelain ware. At
one time John Lodge, the famous engraver, did some engravings
for Duesbury. The bill, dated 1771, shows: Engraving a plate of
Chinese figures, 10s. 6d. ; eight borders, 16s. ; two engravings of two
plates for cups and saucers, £1 Is. each ; two plates for small china,
£1 4s. The total amount, including the copper for the work, was
£5 9s. 6d. Indentification of Lodge's work is difficult, more diffi-
cult that in Holdship's case, because the latter used a monogram,
which will be seen amongst the marks.
William Duesbury of the first period died in 1786, having only
a few months before his decease admitted his son William into
partnership. The second William fully maintained the high
reputation of the factory, which was first in
William Duesbury. merit in the country during the years 1786-1797.
Under his guidance Derby china reached its
highest excellence. Unfortunately, his health gave way under the
strain of incessant work, and, in 1795, he took a partner, Michael
Kean, who, as a skilful miniature painter, gave considerable dis-
tinction to the products of the factory by his painting and designing.
Was he designing in another sense ? For, when Duesbury died,
Kean carried on the business for the wndow, whom he afterwards
married. His connection with Derby is shown by what is known
as the Duesbury and Kean mark, a monogram of D. and K. Soon
after this he quitted the business, which was continued by a third
88
OLD CHINA
William Duesbury, grandson of the first proprietor. It is worthy
of notice that the second Duesbury set out in detail the figure or
number that should be used by each painter on the base of each
article furnished by him. This order was as follows : Thomas
Large two-handled Vase, blue ground,
^rith birds on one side and flo^^ers Ion
the other, gilt.
Soar, 1 ; Joseph Stables, 2 ; Wm. Cooper, 3 ; Wm. Yates, 4 ; John
Yates, 5 ; . . . . , 6 ; William Billingsley, 7 ; Wm. Longdon, 8 ;
Wm. Smith, 9; John Blood, 10 ; Wm. Taylor, 11 (except on white
and blue) ; John Dewsbury, 12 ; Joseph Dodd, 13. Each painter in
blue and in laying (coloured) grounds was to use his mark in blue
or in the ground colour ; for other colours the mark was to be in
orange-red — that is, in the familiar red mark ; whilst for gold
decoration the workman's mark was to be purple, which is now
usually known as the puce mark. Severe penalties compelled
the painters to observe the rules laid down — for a third ofience
the culprit was dismissed. The collector will value these par-
ticulars because they will enable him properly to place and describe
many of his specimens. Other painters were employed whose
DERBY
89
names do not appear in the list, but something will be said later
about their work.
The third Duesbury, who took charge till 1810-11, seems to
have striven to sustain the character of the Derby productions,
but the fickle public support had veered.
Bloor Derby. The early part of the nineteenth century was
noted for general artistic decadence, and
porcelain sufiered in common with the other fine arts. In 1809
V
Biscuit Figure.
'The Dead Bird," by Spengler.
the Derby factory was advertised for sale, and in 1810-11 — some
say 1815 — Robert Bloor, a former clerk, bought the whole
90 OLD CHINA
business, and introduced what is known as " Bloor Derby." He
made money by selling the imperfect ware of his predecessors,
which had been withheld and warehoused as unfit for sale ; the
fame of the factory diminished, and its decline coincided with the
administration of Robert Bloor. Not that it was all bad, for just
at this time large quantities of the Japan patterns were made,
richly gilt and brilliant with colours, but, speaking generally, it
was much more showy, though the biscuit remained excellent.
Auction sales were held in different towns, and the large accumu-
lations of what may be termed seconds with regard to quality,
together with the new products, were sold for what they would
fetch. Samson Hancock, speaking of this period, says : " This is
how it came about : Robert Bloor purchased the Duesbury factory
from Michael Kean by disposing of a large stock of china. Bloor,
although he employed capable people, allowed the quality of the
ware to deteriorate. His goods, like the razors, were made to sell.
As an inevitable consequence, the works declined, and in 1848
they were closed."
Bloor became insane in 1828, and Thomason, as the manager,
carried on the business till 1844. Then, for the next four years,
Thomas Clarke, who had married Bloor's
"Crown" Derby, daughter, was the proprietor. In 1848, he
closed the works, and sold the plant, moulds,
models, &c., to Samuel Boyle, of Fenton, who transferred them to
the Staffordshire potteries. Some of the hands found their way
into Staffordshire, where a so-called " Crown " Derby china was
made right up to recent years. Again, Samson Hancock says : " I
succeeded Robert Bloor, transplanting the Nottingham Road
^vorks to my present factory — King Street. Six working men
employed at the old factory put their wits together and started
my works — William Locker, James Hill, Samuel Fearn, Samuel
Sharp, John Henson, and myself. We afterwards took George
Stevenson into the concern." The title of the firm was Locker &
Company. In 1859 it appears as Stevenson & Company; later,
Stevenson, Sharp & Company ; then Stevenson & Hancock,
whose initials, S. & H., on either side of the Crown Derby mark,
were adopted by Samuel Hancock, and are now used by his
relative and successor. Some of the present productions of this
vSmall factory are exceedingly creditable, though they do not rival
those of the " Royal Crown Derby Porcelain Works," which are
DERBY
91
quite a recent creation, having been founded in 1876. So there
are actually two factories at work in Derby at the present time,
and old forms and colours are reproduced with absolute fidelity,
and they are sold as modern reproductions. At the Derby
Biscuit Group.
"The Four Seasons," by Spengler.
Museum, thanks to the public spirit of generous donors, there is a
magnificent collection of beautiful specimens of " Old Derby,"
which is well worthy of a special visit from those who are
interested in collecting and studying the products of this particular
factory. Figures were always a speciality of Derby, and the
92 OLD CHINA
museum has many very good figures, as well as genuine examples
of another speciality — flower painting — by such masters as
Withers, Pegg, and Billingsley. From 1825 to 1840 George
Cocker, at one time an apprentice at the Derby works as a
modeller, produced various goods at the Friar Gate works, Derby.
Tea and dessert services, and biscuit and enamel subjects, were
advertised. Owing to ill-success, this factory was closed in 1840,
when Cocker removed to London, w^here he continued to make
figures, many of which, in biscuit and colours, were well modelled,
though generally small in size. Sometimes his name, George
Cocker, Derby, is found as a mark.
The Derby biscuit figures have been already referred to. The
best period was from 1770 to 1810, when notable artists were
employed to model them, such as Stephan,
Derby
_. .. -. Coffee, and Spengler. The biscuit was
Biscuit Figures. ' ^ ^
characterised by a remarkably soft, white,,
waxen tone and translucency ; sometimes it had a suggestion, just
a smear, of glaze. This should be carefully noted, because after-
wards the special paste or body degenerated owing to the secret
of its composition being lost, and the later biscuit is simply
unglazed china with no special feature of distinction from other
biscuit ware. Some say that the biscuit groups and figures of the
best period were the finest ornamental productions ever made at
Derby. Others even go farther, and claim that they were the
finest of their kind ever made. It was whilst trying to produce
biscuit that John Mountford discovered the composition known as
Parian. He was an old Derby modeller, who transferred his
services to Copeland and Garrett, at Stoke-upon-Trent. In Parian —
the next best material to marble — statuary, busts, and other objects
were extensively made. The demand for it is, for the moment, only
slight, but it is certain to come again into public favour.
The earliest Derby porcelain resembled that of the other
early factories, being an artificial porcelain, also called soft paste.
It has a glassy, fritted body, with more or less
P Y ^ d Gl *"" Dorset china clay. The first change took
place in 1764, when Holdship supplied " soapy
rock," a kind of steatite, from Cornwall, which seems to have been
displaced by bone-ash as early as 1779. From that time the ware
became harder and less transparent, until Bloor reduced the quality
in his haste to send as much as possible to the auction sales. The
DERBY 93
inevitable consequence was the loss of distinctive elements in the
ware, which became simply ordinary English china, practically
identical with the other factories, in which, about 1800, the standard
body was composed of bone-ash, china clay, and china stone.
With a few exceptions, such as Swansea and Nantgarw, a
mechanically perfect modern body was adopted, which robbed
porcelain of that interest previously excited in determining' by
various tests and examinations, by transmitted light, by fracture,
and by granulation. The earthiness or opacity about the paste
of the later ware, especially in the Bloor period, detracts from the
quality of the enamel colours used.
The glaze, in the early times, gives considerable assistance in
recognising old Derby. From its peculiar composition, being a very
fusible glass, it shows a multitude of small
The Glaze in the i j-q- •• i. i. r i-t- \--
_ , _, cracks, diflfenng in character from other china.
Early Times. ' °
Hundreds of specimens of glazed and painted
figures, vases, dishes, plates, and cups and saucers, tell the same story
— the story of the cracks. This glaze is soft, and, when filed, goes
off in a fine powder. So soft is it that old teacups which have been
used show considerable discolouration in the body as well as cracks
in the glaze. In fact, early ware was liable to craze, or even to
break, when boiling water was poured into them. Other evidence
regarding Derby shows that blue painted under the glaze, common
to the other factories, never was used by Duesbury, who was an
enameller. It may well be that his skill initiated the remarkable
series of coloured grounds which are distinctive of this factory.
Thus, amongst others, there are found apple green, olive green, pale
green, lapis lazuli blue, dark blue, light blue, torquoise, light buflf,
chocolate, rose, salmon, pink, pink checquered pattern, brown, and
a fine canary colour. Some specimens show exceedingly feeble
and inartistic painting, owing to the fact that
In rf tl white china was sold to amateurs, together
with the colours for china painting and
directions for their use. These pieces were afterwards sent to
the kiln and burnt, and, as the colours were \dtrifiable, they
come down to us with their many imperfections. On the
other hand, many fine samples with beautiful paintings, not
traceable to any of the regular painters either by style or
subject, were undoubtedly the work of very clever amateurs.
The collector will note that the Chelsea-Derby style of decoration
94 OLD CHINA
was largely modelled on Sevres, and that the later Dresden
and Oriental styles, with rococo scrolls and exotic birds, gave
place to bands of plain colours, golden foliage in garlands,
diapers, small sprays of flowers, rich gold borders, elaborate burn-
ishing, and Japan patterns. These last were much in vogue
during the last years of the eighteenth and the beginning of the
nineteenth century, and, like most of the finer pieces of the later
time at Derby, were profusely decorated with rich gilding. The
Japanese china which was copied, or rather adapted, was what is
known as old Imari, and its widespread popularity led to extensive
imitation in the leading factories throughout the country.
/(^^A^^.^ea^'^ez/y-
i> 3: d; €* ^ s^
P.
z/6 3/
W.IH7£S3UKy
Derby ^ JS
PuESBt/RY ■pqr ^^
3)£^5y Xvl fYorcester-
Old Derby Marks.
If any mark was used before 1769, it was either a script D or
the word Derby, but whether the D was Duesbury's initial or
not is immaterial. The Chelsea-Derby or
Derby Marks.
Derby-Chelsea mark was invented after his
purchase of the Chelsea works in 1769-70, and fifteen years
DERBY 95
later the Chelsea factory was closed, so that during those years
the mark indicated both factories, and, later, it was used upon
Chelsea models made and decorated at the Derby factory. It
seems reasonable to hold this view, though it is said that when
all the Chelsea material had been used up the mark was discon-
tinued, except for matching and making-up tea and other services.
The productions of the various periods are arranged as follows ;
Derby,Chelsea-Derby, Crown Derby, and Bloor Derby. The earliest
Derby is from 1753 to 1769 ; Chelsea-Derby, 1769 to 1784 ; Crown
Derby, 1773 to 1782 first period, 1782 to 1831 second period, and after
1831 late period. To put this information in another way we find
that William Duesbury lived till 1786, and from 1753 to that year he-
made Early Derby, Chelsea-Derby, and Crown Derby. His son,
William Duesbury II., was proprietor from 1786 to 1796. He-took
Michael Kean as his partner in 1795. Chelsea-Derby was continued
till 1784, and Crown Derby became the standard production, with a
special mark for Kean's partnership. William Duesbury III,
carried on the business from 1796 to 1815, and made Crown Derby.
His connection with Kean is not clear. Robert Bloor bought the
factory, and from 1815 to 1848 made Crown Derby and Bloor Derby.
A careful examination of the marks will show variations-
which indicate these periods, and though the limitations must not
be regarded too rigidly as a general guide,
^ », ^ they will be as valuable as they are interest-
Marks. ■' ■'
ing. As before stated, it is uncertain whether
the script D was really a mark used by Duesbury before he
purchased the Chelsea works. The balance of opinion is that it
was so used, in gold. Chelsea-Derby is invariably marked, and
when any gilding is used on the object the mark is in gold.
Several varieties of this mark are given in the list — see Chelsea-
Derby Amongst these will be found the crown and anchor, to
mark the visit of King George II. to the London warehouse in
Bedford Street. As will be seen from previous statements, and
from the list of marks, the Chelsea-Derby and first Crown-Derby
periods overlap each other till the close of the Chelsea works, so
that pieces having these marks may be of the same age ; though
some hold that the anchor distinguishes the actual Chelsea ware
from that made at Derby. Three marks [a in the list) seem to
have been employed up to the year 1782. The first is in purple,
the second in blue, and the third, copied from the Rodney jug, is-
96 OLD CHINA
in puce. Shortly after this, the croSvSed lines and six spots were
added between the crown and D. All the genuine specimens of
Billingsley's paintings on Derby china have that addition to the
mark, and it is noteworthy that on all the pieces by him which
were kept at the works the mark was invariably either in purple
or in puce of different shades. He was apprenticed at the Derby
china works, worked there for twenty-two years, and in 1795
resolved to sever his connection with Mr. Duesbury, which he did
the following year. Just before he left the rule was issued that
each painter had to mark his number under every article he
finished, and Billingsley's number was seven. A more detailed
account of him will be given later, but his roses, painted on those
early pieces of Derby, deserve the highest praise. The china
itself has a remarkably soft, very slightly iridescent, glaze, due
to the action of the air on its constituents, and the flowers are
exquisite.
In the marks commencing with II. the first was on a dessert
service, with a narrow yellow border, having plants in the centre
of each piece, very well painted. The number 216 corresponded
with the number in the pattern -book ; probably all numbers
similarly placed near the mark indicated the number in that
book. The next mark with 31 is found, in purple, on teaware,
and the date is about 1785-95. There are slight variations in the
crown. The same mark, in rose colour, and of the same period,
was on a breakfast service made for George III. The decoration
consisted of two broad bands of yellow, with laurel leaves in gold
between the bands, having the Royal crown and monogram in a
circular compartment in front of the cups. The crown was
painted in colours, and the monogram was in gold. The mark
Duesbury Derby is seldom found alone ; it either surrounds the
crown or is in an oval, in purple. Usually the last mark is on
dessert ware, made about 1790. The Duesbury and Kean mark
was used in 1795, but nothing is known as to how long it was
used. The next mark, with W. Duesbury, 1803, was that of the
third Duesbury, then only seventeen years of age. The three
last marks indicate Richard Holdship's connection with the
Derby works.
The crown in the Derby mark seems to have suflFered
variations both in shape and colour, as well as in the presence
or absence of jewels from the crown and their number. The
DERBY 97
colour of the mark is, at the best, uncertain as an indication of
age or of quality, though there is a general preference for the
puce or purple. Blue, puce, purple, lilac, green,
D b M k rose, pink, vermilion, and black were all
employed. Gold was invariably used on
Chelsea-Derby, rarely on other productions of the first two
Duesburys ; whilst the vermilion, generally reckoned as a later
colour-mark, is undoubtedly found on some early pieces. It must
be remembered that the old marks were always done with the
brush by hand, and that the later printed ones were adopted by
Bloor, to whom must be ascribed the general use of vermilion,
and the exclusion, as a rule, of the various other tints. The
crown, having the bows carefully jewelled, was added to the
D script in 1773 ; the crossed lines and dots were, it is said,
introduced in 1782. The story of the cracks must not be-for-
gotten, and it will always help in settling the question of origin.
Coming to the Bloor period, which marks the beginning of
the end, we find that the decadence was due to the sale of
imperfect pieces of earlier make, and to the
Bloor Derby. production of inferior qualities, made for
quick sale by auction in different large towns.
For some years Bloor continued the old mark — the crown, crossed
lines, and dots over the D. The crossed lines are termed by some
batons, daggers, or swords ; but the story is that Duesbury meant
them to represent sticks, with which he could^beat the Dresden
crossed swords. Bloor's crown mark — the old one — was much
less carefully drawn, as will be seen in the list. The first two
marks in this list were from 1815 to 1830, side by side with the
next two, on which the crown is not jewelled. These were in the
red or vermilion which is associated with this period, but which
should be distinguished from the rose colour found on the soft
glazes of the earlier pieces. The first printed
_ . ^ , -, „ mark — about 1825 — was Bloor- Derby, in a
Printed MarK. •' '
circular ribbon, as shown. This, and the later
marks, with or without ribbons, need only a few remarks. Owing
to complaints as to carelessness in drawing them, small copper
plates were engraved, and the ware was markedSwith impressions
from these plates, either printed by the thumb or transferred by
means of a small leather boss. This accounts for the frequent
imperfection of the mark itself, which sometimes has only the
98
OLD CHINA
suggestion of a mark, it may be a bit of a crown or a D, which
would be sufficient for identification. Bloor china was often of
superior merit, especially services carried out by order. The same
marks were then carefully done by hand. On the dessert service
manufactured for Royalty was written, " Messrs. R. Bloor and
Company, 34, Old Bond Street," as set out in the list. Again, the
^ {Jt) \^ .^.
BLOOR ^a^T- '7) ' (P AJ^—yAy
^J.Co//ee ^^jy
London agent of the firm was Thomas Courtney, and his name
was sometimes used instead of the Derby mark. The Dresden,
Sevres, and Chantilly marks, as shown, were
Imitations of . , r .-, ^
the Oriental copied, as were imitations of the Oriental,
though the ordinary Chantilly mark is not as
given, for that is a hunting or French horn. The impressed
DERBY 99
marks on Derby include the rare D. K., for Duesbury and Kean,
and the large class with a script N or No. and the number or
figure, which was sometimes used alone, but usually it was
accompanied by the Derby mark in colours or by the Sevres,
Dresden, or other mark copied from a foreign model. Following
the Robert Bloor mark referred to just now is the Samson
Hancock mark, S. H., with the usual Derby mark modified. This
was first used by Stevenson and Hancock, the successors of
Locker and Company at the King Street works, and, the initials
being the same, is still used by the present proprietor. The
following mark, a monogram of two L's and two C's, surmounted
by a jewelled crov/n, was used by the Royal Crown Derby
Porcelain Company, Limited, Osmaston Road, Derby, until 1889.
Before leaving the marks, attention should be
g i t N *'" called to a large script N impressed or incised,
which is somewhat rare, and is found on early
pieces ; whilst vSmall Roman capitals, one or more on the same
piece, are later. They are found on specimens having the thicker
and softer glazes, ascribed to the end of the eighteenth century ;
but the N was copied from a beautiful cup with a thinner glaze,
which bore the earliest Derby mark in blue. Blue was used not
alone for marking, but for describing the subject of the finest
landscape decoration on china of the best quality, with a satin-
like glaze and pure transparent bodj^ quite distinct from the
earthiness and opacity of the later period. The crowned D,
without the crossed lines, in green, is another early mark. The
last marks, following " George Cocker, Derby," were his marks,
used on figures, baskets of flowers, for which he was famous, and
other pieces, mostly in biscuit, which, until 1840, were made at
Derby, and afterwards at Chenies Street, Tottenham Court Road.
A complete list of Derby figures has never yet been issued,
but the following one will be suggestive to the collector in
enabling him to identify his pieces, and, in a
Derby Figures— measure, to fix the period in which they were
Numbers. made. The number is either scratched, in-
cised, or impressed under the glaze, or it is
enamelled in colour. It refers to the model of the figure or of the
vase, or to the special pattern used for decoration. In the list the
incised number is given first: — 'No. 2, a Squirrel. No. 3, (1) "Diana,"
Chelsea-Derby, 9i in. high ; (2) " Fisher- Girl," Chelsea-Derby,
H 2
lOO
OLD CHINA
%\ in. high ; (3) " Man with staff," Chelsea-Derby, 6^ in. high ;
(4) small Deer, white, glazed, slightly gilt, Duesbury period. No. 5,
"Shepherdess and lamb," biscuit, 7 in. high. Cocker. No. 7, (1)
" Girl with water can and flowers," bi.scuit, 6.j in. high, Duesbury
period ; (2) " Gardening," pair, 7^ in. high, coloured, modelled by
Spengler, Duesbury period ; (3) " Gardening," Man, coloured, 5 in.
high, Chelsea-Derby. iVo. 5, (1) "Gardening," Girl, biscuit, 5| in.
A Derby Figure.
high, Duesbury period ; (2) " Gardening," Boy, biscuit, 5| in. high,
Duesbury period; (3) "Boy with fruit," sitting, biscuit, 5i in.
high, Duesbury period ; (4) Pair, with flowers, each holding candle-
stick, 5^ in. high, Duesbury period, Dresden mark; (5) "Girl
with flowers," sitting, biscuit, 5i in. high, Duesbury period.
DERBY lOl
No. 9, " Music," pair, coloured, 5| in. high, Duesbury period,
Dresden mark. No. 10, " Girl with musical instruments," 4| in.
high, coloured, Duesbury period, red mark. No. 17, Pair ; (1) flute
and (2) guitar, coloured, 62 in, high, Duesbury period. No. 16,
Group, two figures with wreaths, 8 in. high, Chelsea-Derby. No. 20
(1) "Boy with fruit"; (2) "Girl with flowers," 8 in. high, biscuit,
Duesbury period. No. 21, (1) " Flute -player, with dog," biscuit,
7 in. high, Cocker; (2) " Garrick as Richard III.," coloured,
lOi in. high, modelled by Bacon, Duesbury period. No. 23, (1)
" Swiss Boy," biscuit, 82 in. high. Cocker, probably copied from
(2) " Swiss boy," biscuit, with same number, Duesbury period ; (3)
" Swiss Girl," same period as last. No. 35, " Boy with dog, biscuit,
5^ in. high, Cocker. No. 36, "Boy with fruit," sitting, biscuit,
5i in. high, Duesbury period. No. 37, " Jason and Medea," group,
coloured, 85 in. high, Chelsea-Derby. No. 40, " Music," group,
biscuit, Duesbury period. No. 42, " Painting and Sculpture,"
group, biscuit, 6i in. high, Duesbury period. No. 43, "Astronomy
and Astrology," group, biscuit, 62 in. high, Duesbury period.
No. 48, Groups, (1) 92 in. high, and (2), 8 in. high, two " Cupids
birdnesting," Duesbury period ; (3) same number and period ;
" Cupids sharpening arrow on a grindstone," biscuit, 9 in. high.
Many other numbers with descriptions, running into hundreds,
could be given, but these must sufiBce. The list of marks indicates
the use of subsidiary marks, a small triangle, cross, or additional
figure being added to the ordinary mark.
Much could be said about the painters of Old Derby — indeed,
John Haslem's " History of the Old Derby China Factory " is full
of personal reminiscences and biographical
p ^. ^ details, graphically written by one who
began work there in 1822 as an apprentice at
the agfc of fourteen to learn flower-painting. He developed a taste
for figure painting and portrait-drawing, which secured for him
eventually the distinguished position of portrait painter to the
Queen. He died in 1884. He was one of the best flower-painters
at Derby before he devoted his delicate pencil and brilliant
colouring to enamel portraiture. Yet he was only one of a clever
group of painters, some of whom seem to have wandered from
factory to factory, easily earning money, and as easily spending it,
careless for the future, and seldom satisfied with the present.
Billingsley (or Beeley) was a genius as a flower painter, but
I02 OLD CHINA
excessively erratic. Apprenticed at Derby in 1774, he left for
Pinxton in 1796, where, with Mr. Coke, he commenced a small
factory. After four years he went to Hans-
en us as a ower g^^^ where he again started a small concern ;
Painter. ' °
but he had become unsettled, and soon removed
to Torksey, in Lincolnshire, and from thence to Wirksworth.
Worcester was his home later — some say in 1808, though
Mr. Binns wrote: " In 1811 Billingsley, the Derby artist, came to
Worcester." With his companion and son-in-law, Walker, he
remained there till 1813, when they migrated to Nantgarw, a small
village in Glamorgan. A visit from Mr. Dillwyn resulted in a
transfer to Swansea to a small factory, near his own works, which
he built for them. Owing to complaints from Worcester, he
dismissed them, when they returned to Nantgarw in 1815, where
they produced many beautiful services and pieces, which from
their perfection now command high prices. Mr. Rose, of Coalport,
induced them in 1821 to come to Coalport, and he bought the
stock, the moulds, and the recipe for the famous body. Here
Billingsley died about six or seven years later. He was one of the
most remarkable and talented artists and skilled potters that
England ever produced, and he left behind him indelible
impressions of his unusual excellence wherever he worked.
Withers painted flowers in conventional style, in which the
high lights were left, instead of being swept out, as was the
practice of many of the other painters.
The Painters. Banford painted figures and landscapes ;
Cotton and Askew were tv,'o gifted painters
of figure subjects and Cupids. In the South Kensington Museum
Askew is well represented by a group of country children and
sheep taking refuge beneath a tree during a storm. This is
beautifully painted. Indeed, if collectors desire to become
acquainted with the style of the Derby painters, the best method
is to study authentic specimens in the museums, and the Derby
Museum shows a number of specimens with the painters' names
attached. Boreman, for instance, is there well represented. He
was a painter of landscapes, and his work was considered
unrivalled. To describe his method may aid to identify it, but
the description is like an object-lesson without the object. He
washed in the subject first with neutral tint, on which were laid
the positive colours, such as green, red, and yellow. The piece
DERBY 103
was then fired for the first time, being afterwards stippled or
hatched over with a darker finishing colour, and then refired.
Hill's landscapes were executed by a similar method, which
was also practised by Billingsley and others. These early painters
generally painted thinly, and, used on such
_ . * soft and easily-fusible glazes, the colours sank
Landscapes. ■' °
into and became incorporated with them.
As a contrast, take Robertson, one of the later'landscape painters.
He laid on his colours so freely that they chip ofi" after a time,
partly owing to the use of a harder glaze, which caused the colour
to remain dry. Pegg painted plants and single flowers from
nature with considerable skill. Brewer was an excellent landscape
and figure painter. Keys, a noted gilder, was the last apprentice
of the first William Duesbury, and his three sons were employed
at the works as painters. One of them, John Keys, imitated
Billingsley's style. Steele was unequalled in painting fruit,
Lawson in hunting and sporting subjects, and Dodson in birds.
Many other clever artists were employed, such as F. Duvivier
(1769), J. Caulton, and M. Webster. Lucas was for twenty-five
years one of the principal landscape painters, and his work is
somewhat heavy in style and monotonous in colour.
Dixon was the humorous artist, painting grotesque and
ludicrous subjects, such as " A Doctor drawing an old woman's
tooth with a pair of pincers," " Extracting a
* A^trr*^**"* man's tooth with a piece of string, while his
foot is on his chin," drinking scenes, and
many others of a similar type. James Hill painted a well-known
pattern, " Hill's Flowers," with great facility, though in a slight
manner. The group was formed of one large rose in the centre,
with several small sprigs scattered about, in which the lights of
the roses and foliage were produced by straight cutting pencil or
brush strokes, showing mechanical efiFects easily distinguishable
from the work of the better flower painters. The Hancocks
deserve mention and some recognition, if only for the revolution
in gilding which John Hancock accomplished. He introduced
the art of gilding with burnished gold. Leaf gold had been used
previously, which, after being ground with honey, was applied by
a slight flux to the soft glaze and then fired, but sometimes the
gilded part made a faint ridge, which could be detected by the
fingers. Hancock's method — the present one — was to grind what
I04 OLD CHINA
is called " brown gold," prepared by the refiners, in turpentine,
on a glass slab, to add a little flux, and to fire at a heat sufficient
to procure a bright, clear?rose colour. The mercury in the brown
gold disappeared in the process, leaving a
Dead or Matt ^^^^ ^^ ^^^^ ^^^^ which was afterwards
Gold.
burnished by hand by means of an agate
or a bloodstone. John Hancock, the younger, was one of
the first who practised the [present method of ground-laying in
colour in lieu of the old plan of painting it in with the brush.
Introduced about 1817, it revolutionised the treatment of the
coloured grounds. The parts which were to be reserved or left
white were first covered with tinted treacle and dried, then the
proper colour was dusted on the remainder of the prepared
surface, thus giving the requisite ground colour. When this was
dry the piece was immersed in water, the tinted treacle was
removed with cotton-wool, and white panels, reserves, or com-
partments were left for subsequent decoration. The second John
Hancock was a clever painter of birds, and imitated with
considerable success that style of ornament which is shown in
the earlier Sevres.
After having given some consideration to Derby figures, it
will not be out of place to say something about the modellers, the
chief of whom were Spengler, Stephan, Coffee,
The
Modellers Hartenburg, Webber, and Dear, whilst others,
including Bacon, who were not at the works,
modelled for them. J. J. Spengler, whose work has already been
referred to and illustrated, was a Frenchman who had been
employed by Duesbury in London. He came to Derby in 1790.
AmongvSt his works, "Astronomy" cost his employer 12^ guineas;
" Morning " and " Noon " each seven guineas ; " The Three
Graces " six guineas ; " Meditation," a small figure, two guineas.
This system of payment was unsatisfactory to the artist, and was
terminated in favour of an agreement, whereby the height of the
figure modelled was to be proportionate to the price paid for
modelling — e.g., 4 in. to 5 in., 6s. 6d. ; 5 in. to 6 in.. 8s, ; 6 in. to 7 in.,
1 Is. 6d., and so on. Spengler's figures in Derby biscuit are amongst
the finest productions of that factory. Stephan, also a Frenchman,
produced many lovely groups and single figures, amongst the best
of which was " Venus distressing Cupid," designed by Angelica
Kauffmann, and produced in biscuit, 12 in. high.
DERBY 105
William J. Coflfee came to Derby about 1791, and, after having
modelled for four years under an agreement similar to Spengler's,
though somewhat less remunerative, he left
_ „ * for the china works at Burton-on-Trent, but
Coffe«.
soon' returned. Later he set up in business
for himself, and produced some very good figures in terra-cotta,
which were stamped " W. Coffee, Derby." Bacon was the well-
known sculptor, who modelled not alone for Derby, but for other
factories.
Recent prices show that fine Derby maintains the high;
position in the public estimation which it reached in the period
under the Duesburys' services, &c. A Crown
.. „ Derby service for dessert, consisting of forty
pieces, painted by Boreman, was sold for
£79 15s. ; another, similarly painted with birds by the same artist,
£67 4s. ; dinner service, £31 10s. ; Chelsea-Derby pair of vases,
£42 ; Crown Derby dinner service, £45 3s. ; Chelsea-Derby cabaret,
comprising tray, cup and saucer, milkjug, teapot, sugar-basin,
painted with cupids and gilt, £25 4s. Figures : Girl carrying
fruit, £11 10s.; pair, Man with dog, Lady with lamb, £16 5s. 6d. ;
pair of Dwarfs, inscribed, "A Sale by Auction," and "Corn
Market," £34 13s. ; pair of Peacocks, gilt, with pedestals, encrusted
with flowers, £34 14s. ; pair of Dwarfs with immense hats, £28 7s.
Other pieces, vase, double-handled, gilt, with flowers in panels,
blue ground, £15 10s. ; cup, cover, and saucer, two-handled, £7 ;
another dinner service, consisting of 438 pieces, painted with
flowers and foliage in the Oriental style, in red, blue, and gold,
£157 10s. Although extraordinary prices are seldom given for
single pieces of Derby, yet the average is high, considering that
one element in collecting — rarity — is only now being experienced,
and it will be found that collections of fine old Derby will become
very valuable, and that the difiiculty and expense of getting it
will increase as time goes on.
io6 OLD CHINA
PLYMOUTH.
WHEN Chinese porcelain made its way into Europe many
attempts and many failures were the consequence of
imitations of it. Both on the Continent and in England
potters were making experiments, but the early efforts of the
English failed to produce true porcelain. Bow discovered a soft
paste, so did Chelsea; but these and other
Old Plymouth , _ ,. , , ^ ^-n ^
„. - early English products were artificial porce-
lain, whose composition was glass, or an
alkaline flux, with sand, chalk, gypsum, or bone-ash to make it
semi-opaque. The intense heat required for hard porcelain would
utterly destroy this composition, which would melt and become
a shapeless mass. Oriental china is the type of hard paste. It is
with diflBculty scratched with hard steel. Chelsea or early Sevres
is the type of soft paste, which is easily scratched with a hard
point, and readily stained by use. The high value of Oriental
porcelain placed it within the reach of the wealthy only, and some
were content to wait for years for a dinner service from China,
which they ordered through the agency of the East India
Company. German and French goods were brought into England
by secretaries and attaches, who, owing to their position, paid
no duty. Hence the home market suffered, and attention was
more and more directed to the discovery of the materials necessary
for the manufacture of hard paste porcelain.
William Cookworthy, a Plymouth apothecary and chemist,
writing to a friend in 1745, says : "I had lately with me the
person who hath discovered the china earth.
China tone ^^ ^^^ several samples of the china ware of
Disco-vered.
their making with him, which were, I think,
equal to the Asiatic. Twas found in the back of Virginia, where
he was in quest of mines ; and, having read Du Halde, discovered
t)oth the petunse and kaulin." Petuntze, or china stone, was the
PLYM0U2H 107
fusible part of the composition ; kaolin, or china clay was non-
fusible. Together they formed the body or paste, whilst the
glaze was composed of china stone, modified sometimes by the
addition of lime. In this true or hard porcelain the body and the
glaze were fired in one operation at an equally fierce degree of
heat. Cookworthy set out with one object, to discover these
two ingredients, and tradition holds that the china stone was
discovered by him in the tower of St. Columb Church, and traced to
the quarry in a hill called Tregonnin Hill, where he also
found several pits of china clay, which had, later, a far-reaching
influence over the English manufacture of china. Practically, all
English porcelain makers adopted bone-ash, china-stone, and china
clay as the standard paste about 1800. Cookworthy was, meantime,
searching and experimenting, and he put on record his results.
" I have lately discovered," he wrote, " that in the neighbourhood
of the parish of St. Stephen's, in Cornwall, there are immense quan-
tities both of the petunse stone and the caulin, and which, I believe,
may be more commodiously and advantageously wrought than those
of Tregonnin Hill, as, by the experiments I have made on them, they
produce a much whiter body, and do not shrink so much, by far, in
baking, nor take stains so readily from the fire." The exact date of
the opening of the Plymouth works at Coxside is uncertain, but
experiment followed experiment until, about 1765, success seems
to have been attained, and in 1768 a patent was taken out by
Cookworthy for the manufacture of " a kind of porcelain newly
invented by me, composed of moor-stone or growan and growan
clay." To the curious in such matters the specification would be
interesting, but it is too long to be inserted here. Jewitt gives it
in extenso. The process of manufacture, shortly
T^hc Process of
-, - , described, was that the stone was prepared by
Manufacture. tr ir j
levigation in a potter's mill, and by the aid of
water reduced to a fine powder, then, after allowing the particles of
mica and sand to settle to the bottom, pouring the water, white with
clay, into vessels until the clay subsided. The earth or clay gave a
white and infusible body, to which the stone added transparency
and mellowness. Cookworthy, though a good chemist, was not a
practical potter, and, however beautiful and satisfactory the produc-
tions of the Plymouth works might have been, they could not compete
commercially with the other factories, so that the result was that,
in 1773 or 1774, Richard Champion, merchant, of Bristol, who had
loS
OLD CHINA
previously worked " under licence from the patentee," bought the
Plymouth business and patent rights, and transferred them to
Bristol, using the title, " W. Cookworthy and Company," probably
to displace one that had been in use there from 1771 to 1773:
" Messrs. Cookworthy and Company." There is scarcely any
doubt that the Plymouth marks were at first used by these Bristol
Plymouth— Coffee Cup.
works. I^ord Camelford, who financed the Plymouth factory,
writing in 1790, gives some particulars : " With regard to the porce-
lain manufactory that was attempted to be established some years
ago, and which was afterwards transferred to Bristol, it was under-
taken by Mr. Cookworthy The difficulties found in
proportioning properly the materials so as to give exactly the
necessary degree of vitrification and no more, and other niceties
with regard to the manipulation, discouraged us from proceeding
in this concern, after we had procured a patent for the use of our
materials, and expended on it between two and three thousand
pounds. We then sold our interest to Mr. Champion, of Bristol."
This statement seems to indicate that Plv-
Plymouth China , , . ,
was at its Best. ^o^th chma was at Its best only in the
experimental stage. If not, it is certain that
the perfection of its best productions could not have extended
over any long period. The patent was taken out in 1768, and the
works were closed in 1774, which only gives six years for actual
manufacture, even if the processes had been carried out by a skilled
potter, which Cookworthy was not. He complains in his state-
ment " that, by all the experiments we have made, the North of
PLYMOUTH 109
England kilns, where the fire is applied in mouths on the outside
of the kilns, and the fuel is coal, will not do for our body.
. . . . The only furnace or kiln which we have tried with
any degree of success is the kiln used by the potters who make
brown stone. Wood is the fuel used in it. . . . the air and
flame freely ascend, and play round every safeguard (sagger), by
which means those tingeing vapours, which have given us so much
trouble, are kept in continual motion upward, and hindered from
penetrating and staining the ware."
The early pieces of Plymouth were very coarse, very rough,
and altogether inferior, showing some skill in mixing, less in
modelling, but very little in firing, and the decoration was mostly
in blue of a dull, dark shade. Cookworthy, however, still strove
after success. Sevres and Dresden were to be equalled. A clever
French artist was engaged— Mons. Saqui, Soqui, Soquoi, of Le
Quoi is the name variously given. He came, it is said, from Sevres,
but Plymouth shows no signs, either in design or enamelling, of
the Sevres influence. Curiously enough, the best productions of
the factory were more like Chelsea or Bow in decoration than any-
thing else, but, of course, the paste is quite difFerent. It may be
that the exotic birds and the flowers on the finest pieces should be
ascribed to Saqui, though there are no means by which his work
may be identified. Henry Bone, the famous enamel portrait
painter, was an apprentice to Cookworthy, and
An Apprentice ^^ .^ credited with some fine work on Plymouth
to CooRworthy,
porcelain ; yet, again, this is doubtful. Bone
was a marvellous artist, who reached eventually a high position,
being elected to the R.A. in 1811. He was born at Truro, in Corn-
wall, in 1755. As a boy he was devoted to drawing. At the age of
sixteen he joined the Plymouth china factory, and accompanied the
transferred works to Bristol in 1772, where, the next year, he was
re-apprenticed, to finish his term of six years. It seems, therefore,
improbable that fine work could have been done by him except at
the latter place. Another statement, much more likely, is that the
works were organised by Bow workmen ; hence the similarity in
the models. For instance, both Bow and Plymouth manufactured
salt-cellars, which were very much in vogue. They consisted of
sea-shells resting upon corals and other shells, and were usually
modelled in white porcelain. At Bow similar shells in soft paste
had been made some fifteen years earlier. Again, the large
no OLD CHINA
busts of George II. were made at Bow before the Plymouth works
were opened. In the Schreiber collection, South Kensington
Museum, is one with the Plymouth mark. The famous figures of
Plymouth— Shell Salt-cellar.
Kitty Clive and Woodward, the actor, were made at Bow in 1758,
and about twelve years later were copied at Plymouth. Both
factories — indeed, all the factories — imitated
-, , ^ , the Oriental in form and decoration, and
Oriental. '
from the nature of their business connection
there is a striking likeness between the Plymouth and the Bristol
products, and the more so because both are hard paste. This
business relation is not quite clear. An advertisement in the
Worcester Journal, February, 22nd, 1770, reads: "China painters
wanted for the Plymouth new-invented patent porcelain manu-
factory. A number of sober, ingenious artists, capable of painting
in enamel or blue, may hear of constant work by sending their
proposals to Thomas Frank, Castle Street, Bristol." Professor A.
H. Church remarks : " It is difficult to suppose the works were
then at Plymouth, for, if so, why should applicants be invited to
communicate with T. Frank, of Castle Street, Bristol ? But if the
works were just then being moved from Plymouth to Bristol, such
a direction would be quite natural." Champion was then working
under the patent by licence. Then he goes on : " It must be held
that the manufacture of porcelain at Plymouth was never pushed
to any very high degree of perfection or carried on to any large
extent." Without agreeing entirely to this, the conclusions set
out previously must be emphasied that only during the last years
of the Plymouth works could any of the fine vases and other highly-
decorated pieces be produced, and that early in its history some
PLYMOUTH III
good porcelain made at Bristol bore the Plymouth mark. Still,
local circumstances have to be taken into consideration, for many
families in Plymouth and its neighbourhood
Made at Bristol, have in their possession marked specimens of
ymou ^^ china with good decoration. The late
mark. '='
Mr. James Doel, who, at the time of his death,
was the oldest actor in England, had made locally a good collection
of Plymouth china which was both marked and unmarked, so that
comparisons were easy. After handling the pieces, after
comparing them with one another and with some marked Bristol,
one was driven to the opinion that much of the fine china marked
Plymouth was really made at Bristol.
The usual classification may be applied to the products of
this factory with regard to its decoration — white, blue-and-white,
and enamelled in colours. The first — white — consisted of oval
cups with decoration in low relief, with saucers, sauce boats, and
animals ; but the commonest and best forms were the salt-cellars,
shell-shaped. These articles were not at all well made, as the
modelling was only poor. A very good test of early Plymouth is
to be seen in them, because, largely owing to the imperfect and
experimental stage which had then been reached, and to the use
of wood for firing, they are smoke-stained often to a light-brown
tint, and the bases are covered with a multitude of tiny black
specks, defects that Cookworthy had, as we have seen, great
trouble in avoiding. The blue-and-white was of similar form to
the plain white, but dinner and tea services were also made. It is
comparatively easy to distinguish the old Plymouth blue, for the
colour is a peculiar dead blackish tint. Further,
To Distinguish ^jjg colour shows a decided tendency to run
* th Bi ^^^ become streaky, especially in the lower
part of the design, which is often not at all
clear nor well defined. In the British Museum is a mug with a
Chinese view in blue, painted in blue under the glaze, which
shows how the early ware is specked, how the glaze lies uneve ily,
being too thick in some parts, and how the colour has run. This is
undoubtedly an early speciman, and from it much may be learnt —
amongst other things, the difficulties of the pioneer potter. The
peculiar defects of Plymouth may be singularly well seen in such
early specimens, which are commonly disfigured by cracks made
in firing — fire cracks or crazes — by warping or bending out of
112
OLD CHINA
shape, which is specially noticeable in many of the figures, and
by spots, blotches, and blisters on the glaze. The decoration, too,
is often very coarse and poor, the painting, as a rule, being of
very little merit. In fact, only those pieces which were selected
for enamel painting seem to be quite free from some mark of
crazing or spotting.
Oriental, Chinese, said to be Plymouth.
The dinner and tea services were of purely Oriental design,
in the blue-and-white style generally, so that the blackish-blue
colour test must be applied. The South Kensington Museum
shows many undoubted early pieces, a teacup painted with foliage
in blackish-blue, a plate similarly painted under the glaze, and
marked, besides the beautiful specimens in the Schreiber collec-
tion, at the same museum, many of them very finely painted in
enamel colours ; but whether they were made at the Plymouth
factory or at Bristol must remain more or less an open question.
The enamel designs include a conventional spray of flowers with a
central rose, an exotic bird decoration in the Chelsea style, and
figures, busts, monsters, vases, mugs, and jugs. It is well to
note here that Champion, of Bristol, in applying for an extension
of the Plymouth patent, in 1774, described the products of his own
factory as "an almost perfect manufacture," whilst he stated that
the Plymouth products were "very imperfect," and, more than
that, he claimed that he had been associated with Cookworthy's
business almost from the time when the patent was first granted
to him.
The recognised mark was the sign for tin, or Jupiter, used by
PLYMOUTH 113
the alchemists, and consists of an Arabic 2 with a cross line
throug-h the tail, making it like a 4. It is
Plymouth MarKs.
usually painted in blue, red, or enamel colours
under the glaze, and in brown enamel over the glaze upon early
pieces made at Plymouth.
^
%
'"'-'' a) cry
^ U i70)
On some of the finest specimens it is gold, but these were
mostly made at Bristol. The white ware was unmarked ; the blue-
and-white had the blue mark invariably, and at first this was thick
and clumsy in the drawing, but on the later goods it is more
neatly done. The incised mark has only been found on one piece,
which will be noticed. lyooking now at the list —
1 . Is on a cup or mug in blue, four castles — the Plymouth
arms — with the word Plymouth above and some illegible
letters below, and a date with the initials C.F.
2. On a pair of small sauce boats, embossed, and painted
with birds and flowers in colours. Sometimes the mark is in
Roman letters.
3. On a cup decorated in the Chinese style, with figures
114 OLD CHINA
and landscape. The saucer is similarly marked. The XII.
is unusual.
4 to 7. Varying form of the mark ; some carelessly drawn.
8. Similar to a Bow mark, but the paste is hard.
Probably other Bow marks were used.
9. Incised mark under the glaze, on a quart mug remark-
ably well potted, clear in colour and glaze, exquisitely painted,
possibly by Saqui, on one side with peacock and pheasant
and landscape, on the other side with a group of flowers ;
the bottom is disfigured with a fire-crack. See illustration.
10. Variation of the mark, which sometimes had the
Bristol cross added below.
Genuine specimens of Plymouth are very rare, and it is only
seldom that they are to be found in auction catalogues. The
prices given are poor when compared with the
„ . best of other factories. The following are
Buying, °
selected from various sources : Plymouth
mug, 14s. ; bowls and covers, pair, formed as Doves on their nests,
£7 7s. ; dessert baskets, pair, with branch handles, painted with
bouquets of flowers, and encrusted with may flower, lOj in. long,
£21 ; figures of Bird on a tree trunk, coloured, and another nearly
similar, white, with a figure of a Peacock, £27 6s. ; shell dishes,
two, painted with flowers in the Chinese style, and encru,sted with
coloured shells and seaweed, and a smaller white one, £5 5s. ;
tankards, pair, painted with birds, trees, and flowers in colours,
£46 4s. ; teapot and cover, milk-jug and mug, painted with kylins
and vases, in panels, after the Chinese style, £11 lis.; triple-tier
shell sweetmeat dish, with a shell handle, painted with flowers in
colours, and with groups of coloured shells, coral, and seaweed,
£2 12s. 6d. ; mug, bell-shaped, 5j in. high, painted with exotic
birds and continuous landscape in brilliant colours, marked, £12 ;
figures, pair of Gardeners, white, 10 in. high, £10 10s. ; salt-cellar,
mark in red, £7 5s. ; group, Neptune riding a dolphin, a well-
known figure, often copied in Old Staffordshire pottery, on a
pedestal encrusted with shells, 8| in. high, £22 10s.; group, Man
and Boy, with basket, 8 in. high, £14 14s. ; another sweetmeat
stand, triple tier, shell-shaped, painted with flowers, with raised
shells and seaweed, £14 14s. ; teapot, painted with figures in the
Chinese style, and a mug, also painted with Chinese figures in
colours, £8 8s.
i
PLYMOUTH
"5
It will be appropriate here to give some particulars about
china clay and china stone, because they are so extensively used
in the manufacture of English and foreign porcelain, and because
Cookworthy discovered and first applied them
to this purpose. China clay or kaolin is
prepared chiefly in Cornwall and Devon.
St. Austell, St. Dennis, Roche, and St. Stephen's, in Cornwall, and
the Morley, or Lee Moor works, on the South side of Dartmoor,
near Plymouth, furnish the chief supplies. In these localities, the
China Clay and
China Stone.
A Fine Mug, marked Plymouth.
decomposition of the feldspathic portion of ^the granite rocks
supplies, in a friable state, the materials from which the kaolin is
procured. The decomposed rock, usually containing much quartz,
is commonly exposed on an inclined plane to a fall of a few feet of
water, which washes it into a trench, whence it is conducted into
catch-pits. The quartz, schorl, mica, and other minerals present
are mostly retained in the first catch-pit, but there is usually a
second or even third pit, in which the coarser substances are col-
lected before the white clay in mechanical suspension is allowed
to rest in the tanks prepared for it. When |it is settled the water
is drawn off through holes in the sides of the tanks, and the
process is repeated till the tanks are full of soft clay. This is
I 2
ii6
OLD CHINA
allowed to dry by exposure to the air, then it is cut into cubical
pieces of about 9 in. or 12 in. long, which are carried to a roofed
building, and, after being properly dried and scraped, are sent to the
potteries in bulk or in casks. The presence of iron has particularly
to be avoided, as it would colour the body or paste of the earthen-
ware or porcelain. The china stone, exported to the potteries, is
Vase, marKed Plymouth, probably Bristol.
chiefly quarried at St. Stephen's, Cornwall, Tregonning Hill, and
St. Dennis. It may be considered as a granitic rock, which
furnishes the kaolin in a minor state of decomposition ; the feldspar
of the compound rock is rich in the silicates of potash and soda.
It is usually a combination of quartz, partly-decomposed feldspar,
and scales of greenish-yellow talc, which only requires to be
broken into convenient pieces for carriage to the potteries, where
it is ground to a powder. English bone porcelain, made by practi-
cally all English factories of the nineteenth century, consists of
PLYMOUTH 117
a paste — bone-ash, china stone, china clay — and a glaze — china
stone and china clay, with boracic acid, alkalies, and lead oxide.
The illustration of a beautiful vase shows very well the difference
of opinion on Plymouth v. Bristol. Some, very like this, marked
in red, were in the possession of Mr. F. Fry, of Bristol, and the
Earl of Mount Edgcunibe has a pair on which the Plymouth mark
is also found. They are evidently made by the same artists, and
should be ascribed to Bristol.
Il8 OLD CHINA
BRISTOL.
BRISTOL was the only factory in England where true
porcelain was made equal in hardness and texture to the
Oriental, with the one exception of Plymouth. Bristol
china is particularly scarce, especially marked specimens of the
finest quality, decorated with exquisite landscapes, and the well-
modelled figures, too, are difl&cult to get. But the scarcest pieces
are the biscuit plaques, with elaborate orna-
Scarcest Pieces- mentation of delicate raised flowers enclos-
ing a coat-of-arms or a portrait in low relief.
Fortunately, examples of the choicest varieties can be studied at
the museums, notably in the Schreiber collection at South
Kensington, and collectors would be wise if these were made a
subject of serious study with regard to form and decoration, paste
and glaze. Those who possess fine china, but do not collect it,
would gain equal advantage from a close examination of
authenticated pieces to which they could apply the knowledge
gained by reading. There they would see that the highest class
of Plymouth-marked china difi"ered so slightly from Bristol as to
justify the remarks previously made when comparing the products
of the two factories. In some vases, for example, the birds are
quite similar in type, probably painted by the same artist, so that
the question naturally arises, "Were they made at Bristol previous
to the removal of the Plymouth works, or were they made at
Plymouth ? " Perhaps, after all, it is not worth while to be
supercritical, so we will leave the subject, possibly for solution by
some future expert.
Let us go back for a short time to consider the tarlier period,
where porcelain was first produced in Europe, and then trace the
position that Bristol holds in this connection.
Looking back. Jq \}^^ German National Museum, at Nurem-
berg, many fine examples of Bottcher's work
are to be seen. He was the first to produce porcelain of the hard
character of the Oriental. In 1707 he had only succeeded in
BRISTOL
119
making a close, compact, red hardware, differing very little from
the ordinary stoneware ; but by the discovery of a white tenacious
clay by one Schnorr, Bottcher was enabled to manufacture the
first white porcelain at Meissen, Dresden. The most vigilant
eflForts, the most terrorising threats and oaths, failed to secure
secrecy, and soon Vienna, Hochst, Fiirstenburg, and Frankenthal
possessed and utilised the secret of making hard porcelain. The
Royal factories at Louisberg, Berlin, Copenhagen, and St. Peters-
burg followed, and soon began to rival each other, and all to vie
OLD BRISTOL.— A plate with a gold Dresden border, and painted
'With festoons and flowers, and a plateau with t'wisted handles and
open-worK sides, painted with a bouquet and festoons of flowers-
Very fine.
with Meissen. France, not to be behindhand, and finding, at
fir.st, no natural materials for making true porcelain, used an
artificial paste, composed of various ingredients fritted together,
and rendered semi-opaque by chalk and gypseous earth. This
celebrated pate tendre rivalled in beauty the best productions of
other countries, and though the texture was not so firm as the
hard paste, yet in colour and decoration it still stands first. This
French soft paste, like that of our early English factories, differed
from glass only in being semi-opaque and in having a soft lead
glaze. The very defects of soft paste were of the highest value
I20 OLD CHINA
for the softness of the glaze imparted such richness and depth
to the enamel painting that it has the appearance of being
incorporated with the glaze, or rather of being painted under it.
In 1758 Sevres became a Royal factory, which produced such
famous colours as the hleu de rot, bleu-turguoise, violet, yellow,
greens — vert pomtne, vert jaune, vert pre, or vert anglais, and rose
or red, especially the so-called rose Dubarry, which should be rose
Pompadour, as it was invented twelve years before Mme. Dubarry
appeared at Court, and all the best pieces were made before 1764,
when Mme. de Pompadour died. The discovery of kaolin, or
china clay, in France led to the manufacture of hard porcelain,
which in 1768 displaced the pate tendre. German porcelain,
especially Dresden, was largely imported into England, and with
Oriental and Sevres formed the first examples from which English
products were copied.
The English manufacturers complained of the German im-
portations that they were " allowed to pass at the Custom House
as for private use, by which means the shops
„ abound with new stock, and public sales are
Germany. '^
advertised at the very beginning of winter,
and in large quantities ; but there is reason to believe, from the
diminution in the price of Dresden china, that this is done on
purpose to crush the factory established here (Chelsea), which
was a project threatened last year." Then they go on to suggest
" that considerable quantities have been entered at the Custom
House for private use, beside what may have been allowed to pass
as furniture to foreign ministers." They pray in their petition to
Parliament " that the Commissioners of the Customs may be
cautioned with regard to the admission of this ware under the
pretence of private use, and that the public sale of it may not be
permitted more than that of other prohibited goods." They
further state that the seizures cannot be difficult, " as all Dresden
china has a sure mark to distinguish it by ; but if this commerce
is permitted to go on, the match between a crowned head and
private people must be very unequal, and the possession of the
foreign manufactures will at any time, by the sacrifice of a few
thousand pounds, have it in their power to ruin any undertaking
of this kind here." The fiscal difficulty on the one hand, and
the absence of sufficient financial support on the other, were
responsible for the final failure of Bow, Chelsea, and Plymouth ;
BRISTOL
121
and Bristol, as we shall see, liad only a short life, for though
Champion had to meet heavy expenses in fighting the Stafford-
shire potters and the members of Parliament for that county, in
their opposition to the extension of Cookworthy's patent, yet the
Bristol works were only brought to an end after he had proved
his ability to produce some truly exquisite specimens of general
porcelain of the finest texture, in painting, modelling, and potting
of the most artistic and finished style.
Turning back to the commencement of Champion's work,
which resulted so disastrously, it will be remembered that Cook-
worthy's patent for the manufacture of Plymouth china was only
taken out in 1768, so that Champion could not have made porcelain
before that time, unless he had another source for the supply of
The Four Seasons.
the chief ingredients. Curiously enough, in 1765, his brother-in-
law sent two boxes of " porcelain earth " from Charlestown, now,
not then, in the United States ; one box was for the Worcester
works, and the other for the Earl of Hynford, from whom it came
to Champion, after a Mr, Goldney had declined it. Here, then,
was the basis of his experiments, for, writing in February, 1766, he
says : " I had it tried at a manufactory set up here some time ago
on the principle of the Chinese porcelain, but not being success-
ful is given up." Neither was the experiment a success, the
Bristol kiln failing to secure an effective temperature. However,
the box of china-earth gave Champion the notion of making porce-
lain. He knew of the works at Plymouth ; presently we find him
122
OLD CHINA
in 1768, working under licence from Cookworthy shortly after the
patent was taken out, and [the relations between the two men
continued on the most friendly terms till Cookworthy gave up, in
1774, his connection with the Bristol works, when he writes : " I
have not had the least reason to complain
Earliest of R. Champion's behaviour." The first adver-
Bristol tisement of Bristol china is found in 1770, and
one of the earliest examples is a moulded cream-
boat of very dry opaque body, made wholly of kaolin, or china-clay,
and marked " Bristoll " in relief. Another early piece is a fine
hard porcelain bowl, heavy in texture and substance, as well as
imperfect in glaze, painted in blue under the glaze, in rude
"^ A Beautiful Group of Old Bristol.
inartistic clotty colour, representing a Chinese landscape, with "The
Blacksmiths' Arms," accompanied by the motto, "By hammer and
hand all arts do stand." This bore mark No. 2. Another
piece, a mug, had a part of a drinking song, with the music score
in the interior. F.B. was Francis Brittan, and John Brittan or
Britain was a foreman at the works, whose initials — No. 3 — appear
in some pieces of Champion's manufacture. These early specimens
indicate that though, as yet, the Bristol works were not in active
operation, yet early attempts to use flint and Cornish soapy rock,
or steatite, gave Champion encouragement to approach Cook-
worthy and to proceed with the manufacture as soon as the former
BRISTOL 123
received his patent. In 1771 the factory at Castle Green was in
full operation, for a public advertisement of that date appeared :
"Some beautiful services, ornamental figures, candlesticks, and
many other valuable articles of the Bristol manufactory," for sale
" on retail at Taylor's Hall." Again, in August, 1772, an auction sale
was announced for September 1st: " Useful and ornamental china,
the produce of the Bristol manufactory, consisting of very elegant
figures, beautiful vases, jars, and beakers, with all kinds of useful
china, blue-and-white and enamelled &c." Probably it was in
this year that the turnover from Bristol to Plymouth began,
because we know that Henry Bone, then seventeen years old, was
transferred to the Bristol works, to complete the apprenticeship
begun at Plymouth. He became a celebrated enamel painter, was
admitted as R.A. in 1811, and died in 1834, leaving behind him an
extraordinary reputation, which is still maintained, as shown by
the prices paid for products from his pencil.
The illustrations are from the catalogue of the celebrated
collection of Mr. William Edkins, which was sold in 1874 by
Messrs. Sotheby, Wilkinson & Hodge.
The first advertisement to the trade, November, 1772, was as
follows : " China. — At the manufactory in Castle Green, Bristol,
are sold various kinds of ' The True Porcelain,'
^^ g^^. both useful and ornamental, consisting of a
new assortment. The figures, vases, jars,
beakers, are very elegant, and the useful ware exceedingly good,
As' this manufactory is not at present sufiiciently known, it may
not be improper to remark that this porcelain is altogether free
from the imperfections in wearing which the English china usually
has, and that its composition is equal in fineness to the East
Indian {sic), and will wear as well. The enamell'd ware,
which is rendered nearly as cheap as the English blue-and-
white, comes very near, and in some pieces equal, to Dresden,
which this work more particularly imitates." This will
explain the frequent presence of the Dresden mark on old Bristol,
thtrugh sometimes the mark — the crossed swords — was covered
by the Bristol cross and a number, or a number was placed under
the Dresden mark, as will be fully shown later when the marks
are given.
We now reach the period when Cookworthy gave up his
interest in the Bristol works. For the last few years Plymouth
124 OLD CHINA
had been working simultaneously with Bristol, for when Champion
began to work, under licence, in 1768, he borrowed £4,500, and
another £2,500 later; then in 1770 Cookworthy acquired an
interest in the Bristol business. About two years later the trans-
fer from Plymouth began, to be completed in 1773, and finally
Cookworthy was paid out in 1774, when Champion became the sole
proprietor. He confessed " to no knowledge as a potter than
what he had acquired in the process of this manufacture, his
profession as a merchant not putting more in his power ; but he
had the experience of Mr. Cookworthy, the inventor, one of the
most able chemists in this kingdom. He had the experience of
the manager of his works, a person bred in the potteries, and
thoroughly conversant in manufactures of this kind. The work-
men he employed were brought up to the branch, and he had
spared no expense in encouraging foreign artificers."
Champion's early efforts included the manufacture of the
commoner blue-and-white ware for domestic purposes. Marked
specimens are rare, but some pieces with all
Champion's Early ^^^ characteristics of Bristol are marked with
Efforts.
a small_ black cross. The glaze of tHis'early
ware is much softer than that which ordinarily distinguishes
Bristol china from all other. On comparing a specimen of
Dresden or Oriental with Bristol, it will be observed that whilst
in the two former the body and the glaze are distinct creations.
Champion's glaze had so close an afiinity for the porcelain body
that it entered into combination with it and did not cover it with
an independent glassy surface. Collectors will profit by carefully
noting this important distinction. The effect was, doubtless, due
to raw glazing, that is, the raw ware was dipped into the glaze and
then fired at one operation. The great heat required to fuse the
hard glaze constituted the chief risk in the work, so that, to make
the cheaper blue-and-white ware, a softer glaze, fusing at a lower
temperature was adopted. Single pieces, such as jugs, pickle-
leaves, and plates of the usual body and glaze, blue-and-white,
marked with a cross, are not so rare as marked specimens of this
cheap ware. Brogniart was of the opinion that soft paste was
made at Bristol about 1776, but the only corroboration of this is
to be found in a few pieces ascribed to Bristol which were soft
paste so far that they could be abraded by a file, though the glaze
was harder and full of air bubbles. They were thick in substance,
BRISTOL
125
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN.
Bristol Hard Porcelain Flower Piece.
126 OLD CHINA
very transparent, marked with a cross, and painted with flowers
in the peculiar lilac-grey enamel associated with the factories of
Plymouth and Bristol. They may have been early experimental
pieces with the variations common to that period, or they may
have been the productions of the company of Staffordshire potters
to whom Champion sold his patent rights in 1781. In any case, it
is undeniable that Bristol china is hard paste, true porcelain of
the best type, equalling Dresden, which was set up as the pattern,
though Sevres and other factories were also copied. Many small
figures are still in existence which are marked] Dresden, and
believed to be such, though they are, without doubt, Bristol. The
pattern, the decoration are purely Dresden, but in size they are
smaller than the original Dresden figures from which they were
moulded, owing to the shrinkage of the hard paste or body in
the firing. Hard porcelain shrinks nearly as much as Parian,
which is reduced by one-fourth in the kiln.
How many collectors are there who have specimens of the
extraordinary flower plaques of Bristol ? These examples of the
application of hard porcelain in decoration
Th© Flower
_, r T» • * 1 show the highest delicacy combined with
Plaques of Bristol- ° -'
wonderful beauty, though they differ some-
what in style and in execution. G. G. in dead gold was the mark
on one, indicating Gabriel Goldney, who was afterwards connected
with the Bristol pottery works, whilst S. C. on another were the
initials of Sarah Champion, who, writing in 1764, speaks of
Cookworthy as being " the first inventor of the Bristol works,"
and again in 1771 says, " after dinner visited the works." These
two plaques, though beautifully modelled by Thomas Briand or
Bryan, lacked the exquisite grace and refinement displayed in
other examples. They were always expensive, for the trade price
of each plaque was more than £5, so that they were either made
to order or for presents to personal friends. The oval plaques
were about 6i in. by 7^ in., though smaller ones measured 6 in.
by 5 in., and the circular ones were about 3i in. in diameter.
Generally they were unmarked, but the Bristol cross is found on
the beautiftxl medallion portrait of Benjamin Franklin, now worth
its weight in gold. Bristol is credited with small baskets of
flowers about 2 in. in diameter, in which the tiny blossoms are
modelled with such rare skill and accuracy as to be really
marvellous. If these specimens are soft paste they are not Bristol
BRISTOL
127
but Derby, being made by George Cocker, whose small baskets of
raised flowers in biscuit were unique. The plaques were only one
indication of the progress that the Bristol factory was making.
Champion, it is true, had his time much occupied by the Parlia-
mentary work attending his application for an extension of his
A Beautiful Teaspoon.
patent rights for a further term, but John Brittan or Britain, his
manager, was able to give such evidence before the Parliamentary
Committee as to convince them of the justice of the application,
and to assist us, by dated specimens showing his practical skill,
in arriving at a proper estimate of the Bristol
Trade Jealousy, work. The story of trade jealousy is no new
one. Having laboured to bring true porcelain
to perfection under Cookworthy's patent. Champion petitioned in
1775 for an extension of fourteen years in order to recoup his
heavy expenditure. Edmund Burke was his friend, and by his
aid, with the support of the Whigs generally, the Bill granting
the concession prayed for passed the Commons — majority, forty-
nine. But the Staffordshire potters, headed by Josiah Wedgwood,
were his opponents, and, in the Lords, Earl Gower, on their behalf,
succeeded in inserting a clause which allowed any other persons
128
OLD CHINA
to use the materials which Cookworthy had discorered, " except
such mixture in such proportions as are described in the specifica-
tion." John Britain, in his evidence, stated that "he had had
great experience in several china manufactures, and had made
many trials upon all those that have been made in England, and
found that all of them, except that of Bristol, were destroyed in
the same fire that brought the Bristol to perfection." He
produced to the Committee for their inspection several samples of
the said kinds of china, and further stated that "they had not
been able to bring the Bristol china to a marketable commodity
until the last six months, but that sometimes they succeeded, and
PiVWio>««««^«viifii!i''
Goblet from the EdKins Collection.
at other times they did not ; yet now they were able to execute
any order. They had been lately making considerable improre-
ments in the manufacture, and particularly were endeavouring to
perfect the blue, in which they had not as yet succeeded, though
they had now a gentleman who had succeeded in a small way, in
which they had been at considerable expense." Champion
describes, in a letter to Edmund Burke, some of the samples to
_ „ . - be exhibited to the Committee. " There are
T^vo Sets of
Beautiful two sets of beautiful tea china : one from
Ovid's "Metamorphosis," different subjects to
each piece, an exact copy of the Dresden set ; the other,
Herculaneum antiquities, each piece a different subject ; also
two pairs of curious vases with festoons of fine flowers ; and, as
it is treason to make a new king, we only have made his
representation." The last piece may have been either a bust of
BRISTOL
129
George III., or, what ivS more likely, a Bristol plaque, decorated
with the raised flowers to which reference has been made. Burke
evidently took great interest in Champion's application to Parlia-
ment for an extension of his patent, for in March, 1775, he writes :
" I find by some conversations the Wedgwood people think of
1.
z
Jcony3 /y^i.
3>
Early Marks.
b.
giving you opposition. Their power is great; whether this ought
to hasten you to town I cannot decide. They were a little
discouraged by the person with whom they conversed. I perceive
they are coming at your clay or at some substance like it. The
idea of a present to Lady North is quite right in every respect.
I hope your Herculaneum figures are on a brown or sort of
pompadour ground, like the originals, or they will not be quite so
well." One of the members of the Parliamentary Committee let
I30 OLD CHINA
fall one of the special examples submitted — a beautiful cup or
goblet. The fragments were long preserved by Britain's family
and then lost, but two of the cups similar to that broken were
acquired by Mr. Edkins. They were white and gold, 4 in. high,
of wonderfully fine paste, nearly transparent, and almost as thin
as Japanese eggshell, with the Dresden crossed swords in blue
under the glaze (see illustration).
The quarrel between Champion and the Staffordshire potters,
headed by Josiah Wedgwood, furnishes interesting reading, but
it is too long to be quoted. The result was to
Opaqu* Porcelain, confirm to Champion the sole and exclusive
right to use the Cornish clay and stone for
the manufacture of transparent ware, but it allowed other potters
the free use of the stone (petuntze) and of the clay (kaolin) in any
proportions diflfering from that specified in Champion's patent,
which meant that they could make opaque porcelain. During
this struggle the process of improving Bristol china advanced
until it reached perfection. A tea set, made for Joseph Harford in
1774 was marked inside with a script J. H., having the cross
between the initials and the date 1774 below them. This date is the
earliest marked date known. The paste and decoration were of the
finest quality. In the same year Edmund Burke ordered a tea set
for presentation to a Mrs. Smith, with whom he resided during a
contested election at Bristol. The shape and painting were from
Dresden models, the latter being the well-known wreaths and
festoons in green. Each piece had the arms of the Smith family,
with Mrs. Smith's initials, S. S., intertwined and painted in bright
blossoms with rare precision and delicacy, and the gold-matt, or
dead gold — not burnished — produced a very rich effect {see
BRISTOL
131
illustration). The painter — Edward Shiercliflf— was a local minia-
ture painter. Even more beautiful, and certainly more elaborate,
was the tea set given by Champion and his wife to Burke ; which
was afterwards — years later — sold by auction. The decoration
consisted of two figures — Liberty, with a spear supporting a
Phrygian cap, and with a shield on which was a Gorgon's head,
faced Plenty, with a cornucopia, whilst between them was a
pedestal with a coat of arms, surmounted by Hymen with a
flaming torch. The pedestal, besides Burke's arms, bore the
inscription— I. BURKE. OPT. B.M.R. ET. I. CHAMPION. D.D.D.
PIGNUS AMICITI^ in. NON NOV. MDCCLXXIV. All of
the large pieces bore this design, but the smaller teacups were
slightly different. Each piece had a rich border of arabesque
Extraordinary
Prices.
design in gold, enclosing Byzantine pattern-work in canary-
yellow {sec illustration). The prices of these pieces under the
hammer were extraordinary. The teapot was
sold for £190, and later resold for £210 ; a
chocolate cup and saucer, £90 ; cup and
saucer £70; another, slightly imperfect, £40; the covered milk
jug, £115. This is said to have been the most elaborate tea
service ever made, and the cost of its manufacture must have
been enormous. The inscriptions alone gave no less than 2,400
letters, and the pieces realised more than three times their weight
in gold. What would be their value to-day ? During the progress
of the Bill — 1775 — Champion was presented to the Queen, and he
K2
132 OLD CHINA
gave her two medallions of the King and Queen in relief, and
some other beautiful specimens of his work. It is curious that
one of Champion's opponents failed for some time to obtain a
patent for making " patent stone " china, which, by burning,
became perfectly white, and did not shrink under any temperature,
to be used as a material for a new porcelain altogether different
from that of Cookworthy or Champion. Spode purchased the
right to manufacture this stone china, but the Marquis of Stafford,
remembering the opposition which had been offered to Champion,
and being offended at this patent being obtained, as well as being
averse to a monopoly, declined to supply any more stone. It is
also curious that Wedgwood in 1769 had taken exactly the course
for which he opposed Champion. He secured a patent for
encaustic decoration, and in a letter to his partner, Bentley, he
regretted that he had not got a patent for
*.'*^*'*'. his intaglio seals. Wedgwood seems to have
Champion. '' ^
gloated over Champion's difficulties, for in
1778 he wrote : " Poor Champion, you may have heard, is quite
demolished. It was never likely to be otherwise, as he had
neither professional knowledge, sufficient capital, nor any
acquaintance with the material he was working upon." Then
he expresses the hope that now he would be able to get cheap
growan stone and clay ; but this hope was disappointed, for
Champion carried on his business at Castle Green till 1781, and
then sold it and his patent to a firm of Staffordshire potters,
consisting of Messrs. S. Hollins, A. Keeling, John Turner, Jacob
Warburton, William Clowes, and Charles Bagnall. It is doubtful
whether Champion had anything to do with these works at New
Hall, Shelton, which, at first, produced hard porcelain similar in
paste and in defects to Bristol china, but inferior in decoration.
No specific mark seems to have been used at New Hall before
1820, so that it is difficult to distinguish its hard paste from
Plymouth, Bristol, or the so-called hard paste Lowestoft, to which
its blue tea ware is often ascribed.
In 1810, New Hall made soft pa.ste, and merged its productions
into the commonly-termed Staffordshire. Champion's Act of
Parliament served one purpose, if we judge by a letter, written
by Horace Walpole, in 1775, in which he said, " To my
sorrow I did not know that last year's Act to favour the Bristol
manufacturers laid a duty of 150 per cent, on French china, and I
BRISTOL
133
paid 1\ guineas for a common set of coffee things that had cost me
but five." In that year, 1775, there was a sale exhibition of Bristol
china in the Pump Room, Bath, of pieces " in enamel equal to
Dresden, in blue-and-white to Nankin." In the same year, Bristol
" True Porcelain " was advertised as the " Patent China at the
manufactory in Castle Green." The comparatively few dated
pieces of Bristol excite unusual interest, one already noticed being
the " Harford " tea set. Another fine example was made for Mr.
William Clowes, merchant of No. 33, Castle Green. The decora-
tion is characteristic — the group of flowers, the scallops in gold on
the rim — but the mark, as shown on the chocolate cup {see illus-
tration), was the double monogram W.C. intertwined, surrounded
by a wreath in colours, inside the cup, the date and the number in
gold, and the cross in blue,' on the bottom of the cup, outside.
The dated examples are exceedingly rare. Specimens in the
Schreiber collection in the British Museum, and the Mayer collection
at Liverpool, will be found very helpful to the collector, because
forgeries and spurious imitations are not detected by the marks,
but by a knowledge of the peculiarities of the china itself. First
note the decoration. The ^favourite form was green festoons of
134 OLD CHINA
leavCvS, sometimes surrounding classical heads or medallions, in
each of which a vase is often minutely painted. Another form
was the group of flowers, noted in the " Clowes " tea or chocolate
set. Next note the gold on the rims. This was nearly always
scalloped, as shown in the illustration, whether vtsed on vases, cups,
saucers, or plates. Now, the decoration could be more easily
copied than the paste, and here we have a real
A Real Guide. guide. The paste has a series of spiral ridges,
wreathings of whorls which can be detected
when wheel-turned pieces are held up sideways to the light.
Instead of the paste lying quite flat, these twisting whorls stand
out so clearly as to be easily seen. They were caused by the
potter's fingers pressing upwards whilst shaping the vessel out of
the heavy clay during the rotation of the wheel, and are distinctive
of Bristol. Again, the very high temperature necessary to fire
this hard paste in the kiln made sundry defects — twists, bends,
fire-flaws — in the early pieces especially, and also produced
occasional accidental additions to the glaze, owing to bits of the
seggars breaking off during the burning process. Further, the
glaze of BrivStol china is full of minute holes visible under a mag-
nifying glass. It will be remembered that the glaze was applied,
not tj biscuit or to china that had already been fired once, but
directly to the raw paste. Hence, during the vitrifying process,
the glaze combined with the paste, and numberless minute bubbles
formed and burst, leaving tiny marks. Technically, such a glaze
IS termed " bubbled." Both paste and glaze are hard, and cannot
be cut with a knife, scarcely with a file. Professor Church thus
describes the peculiarities of a piece of Bristol porcelain : " Paste —
colour, milky- white ; fracture, sub-conchoidal, slightly flaky ;
lustre of fracture, something between greasy and vitreous, under
the microscope hackly ; substance, apparently compact and homo-
geneous : glaze — thin, slightly bubbled, and having the hardness of
fused felspar, about six in the mineralogical scale ; hardness of paste,
extraordinarily high, just that of quartz, seven on the scale. The
analysis shows the cause of the hardness and other fine qualities —
silica, 62*92; alumina, 33-16; lime 1*28; alkalies, 2-64 per cent.
It will be seen that the lime and alkalies do not amount to 4 per
cent., which is a remarkable amount for a fluxing or fusible ingre-
dient. In hard paste, such as Oriental, it is 6 per cent. ; Dresden,
6'3 ; Sevres 7 ; whilst in soft paste, English china, often as much
BRISTOL 135
as 33 per cent, is alkaline matter, bone earth, and fluxing salts, the
remainder being silica and alumina. Probably no hard porcelain
was ever made with so little alkaline matter
., ^^ as the Bristol, which failed because it was too
Matter. '
expensive ; the common blue-and-white was
undertaken too late, the American market was closed, the trade
opposition resulted in heavy costs, and generally business was bad,
owing to the wars. Richard Champion will be remembered as the
man who, when Cookworthy declined the manufacture of hard
porcelain, supported it with all his power, and improved it so that
it became " an almost perfect manufacture." Dr. Blackmore, a
noted collector, speaking of the cottage china, remarks: "The
paste of the common Bristol cups and .saucers is very translucent,
and presents a yellowish tinge when held up to the light, and not
greenish, like the Worcester paste. It is very hard under the file.
It is often warped in the baking. Most specimens show the spiral
lines, or strix made in turning the paste on the wheel, familiar to
all collectors of Bristol. The glaze is good and evenly distributed."
Bristol figures must have been numerous, as they were so
constantly advertised, but, though they may be distinguished
by paste, glaze, and decoration, they were
Bristol Figures. frequently unmarked. The best known are
the two sets of the Four Seasons, one of which
has been previously given as an illustration. Similar figures
were made at Derby in a larger size, and they were also copied in
Staffordshire pottery. Another set — the Four Quarters of the
globe — were 13 in, high: " Europe," with a book in one hand and
a palette in the other; at her feet are trophies of war, with a
horse reclining. " Asia " holds a vase with spices, and at her
feet a camel is reclining {sec illustration). " Africa " is repre-
sented as a young negress ; her attributes are a lion and a
crocodile, also an elephant's head. " America " is drawing an
arrow from a quiver on her shoulder; in her left hand she holds a
bow, and at her feet is a prairie cat. All of these rest upon scroll
plinths. This set has been sold for £610. A third set of four
were the Elements — "Fire," represented by Vulcan forging a
thunderbolt; "Air," by a winged goddess holding Pandora's box
and resting on a cloud; "Water," by a naiad with a net containing
fish, with other fish at her feet, and a water urn ; " Earth," by a
gardener resting on his spade, having a basket of fruit at his feet.
136
OLD CHINA
The modelling is of astonishing spirit and power, full of life and
beauty. Amongst other figures may be mentioned a beautiful
group of three females holding baskets on their heads,
standing on a pedestal round a triangular column ; a Milkmaid
Bristol Figure. " Asia"
holding a pail, standing on a plinth ; a pair, Boy and Girl, with
dogs, marked B in blue ; group, similar to the one described, but
the three females hold funeral torches, in white porcelain ; a pair,
Boy and Girl, exquisitely modelled in white biscuit ; a Girl with a
Lamb, decorated in colours, other examples in white ; a Boy seated
on a barrel, holding a glass, and a Girl, the companion ; another
pair of a Boy and a Girl, playing on musical instruments, seated on
scroll plinths. Animals and birds were often made, and to this
class should be referred a large number ascribed to Derby and
other factories ; but they are hard paste, not soft. Such are a pair
of groups of Sheep with I^ambs, enamelled in brilliant colours and
BRISTOL
137
finely modelled ; and a figure of a Pheasant, enamelled in colours,
and many others in colours, and in white biscuit or glazed white.
Champion's vases were the largest of his works, and, though
they have all the distinguishing features to which reference has
been made, which guarantee their origin, it
Bristol Vases. is to be regretted that they were not marked,
as a general rule. He claimed that they were
equal or superior to the Dresden. An illustration has previously
been given of a very finely-decorated vase. Some were painted
Oval Plateau.
with exotic birds in brilliant colours, and with landscape back-
grounds delicately pencilled. The design of others showed consider-
able skill, being painted with Chinese figures in medallions, with
backgrounds imitating shagreen or shark-skin, often chosen by
the Chinese themselves for a similar purpose. The form of these
vases was usually hexagonal, 12 in. high, or to the top of the cover
16 in. Of the same size and shape were those (1) painted in
monochrome in landscapes, two sides were blue, two green, and two
138 OLD CHINA
lake; (2) decorated with modelled sprays and flowers; (3) enamelled
in blue and painted with sprays and leaves ; and (4) decorated with
birds and insects in compartments with a blue salmon-scale
ground like scale-blue Worcester. The following catalogue
description is from the Edkin collection : " A vase of hexagonal
shape ; four of the sides are painted with landscapes in colours,
the other two in blue monochrome, all exquisitely pencilled. The
gilded border, round the upper portion, beneath the neck, and at
the angles, is a rich arabesque of elegant design." Probably the
present value of this vase is more than £1,000. But it must not be
thought that all Bristol vases were of an elaborate type such as
those described. By far the greater number were smaller, and
painted with simpler patterns, such as festoons of green leaves,
bouquets of flowers or festoons of flowers with detached sprays.
Most of the festoons of leaves or of flowers were suspended from
a line of gold or of colour — red, blue, or lilac. The plateau {sea
illustration) gives a very good idea of the style and decoration
of the finest quality of Bristol china. At the outer edge the
scalloped gold can be seen, then the festoons enclosing vases of
classical forms, in sepia, and the centre painted with a lovely
group of cupids, surrounded by a matted gold border. It is
worthy of notice that in the Edkin sale were two coffee cups painted
with borders and festoons of flowers, marked with a cross, which
were referred to as rare examples of very soft paste.
The early English factories marked their finst products in a
haphazard way. Some pieces had a mark, but the great majority
had none, and can only be distinguished by
List of the man who knows the paste and glaze and
all the Known ^^^^^ peculiarities. Fulham, for instance,
Marks. ^
had no marks ; that on Bow is uncertain.
Chelsea in its later period adopted the anchor; but the early ware
is often questionable, and Worcester so changeful as to be almost
impossible as to the classification in point of date. We have shown
quite a number of Worcester workmen's marks, but the who and
the when are unknown. Plymouth, the forerunner of Bristol, had
mark which was never doubtful — the symbol of tin, or the sign
of Jupiter— but it was seldom used. Even when it is, uncertainty
remains as to the place of origin — Plymouth or Bristol. The latter
factory adopted two marks, the X and the capital B, and each,
when used, has often a number, from one to twenty-four. All the
BRISTOL
139
specimens in the possession of the family of William Stevens, who
was a painter at the Bristol factory, were distinguished by the
jSgure 2. Those marked by the figure 1 are most beautifully
decorated, and are ascribed to Wm. Bone, the famous enameller,
who, v.'itli Stevens, joined the factory as apprentice. In the list the
figure 1 will be seen with the Dresden mark, which was copied by
^ss.
X X
2
Bristol Marks.
Champion when he copied the ware. The figure 1 will also be
seen with the Bristol cross both above and below. There is nothing
to show whether the cross or the B was first used. Probably the
Plymouth mark was adopted in the earliest Bristol period, as a
teapot, long preserved by the Britain family as a souvenir of
Champion's work, had this mark in gold. The Dresden crossed
swords are shown in the list, combined with the B and a nu mber
or with the X and a number, or simply with the cross without a
140 OLD CHINA
number, or, again, with the number without any other mark.
Sometimes the Dresden mark is in faint blue under the glaze, with
the other marks in darker enamel blue over the glaze, and now
and again the number is found in gold. The commonest mark is
the cross and the number in blue, which is frequently found on
services decorated with scalloped gold edges and three gold lines,
between which deep-blue ribbons are interlaced and accompanied
by detached flowers. In the Edkin collection a fluted cream boat,
with flowers in blue, in the Nankin style, was marked with a cross
and an embossed letter T, for Tebo, a modeller, whose other mark,
To, is found stamped on a statuette of the Marquis of Granby,
sometimes ascribed to Bow. In the same collection a teapot,
finely painted with flowers in lake and gold, arabesque borders,
with green shagreen panels in the interspaces, on exceedingly fine
paste, was marked with the initials I. B. on the bottom and inside
the lid. These initials indicate John Britain, Champion's fore-
man (see previous references).
The formation of a collection is a costly amusement, but sale
prices show that the difiiculty is not to sell, but to get, really fine
specimens. It will be increasingly difiicult,
- „ . even for the most wealthy, to collect them
for a Rise. ■'
in the future. The following experience befell
the writer in a slum district of a seaport town. On the
other side of the street, a little boy, seated on a doorstep of an old
furniture shop, was banging the lid on to the teapot hard. Bang !
smash went the spout. "Oh," says the mother in reply to an
inquiry as to the price'of the pot, " it is a good job for you that
the spout is broken, or it would have been a shilling ; now it is
ninepence." A specimen Bristol teapot, marked with a cross and
a number, now reposes in the writer's collection. Cost ninepence ;
would rather have paid a shilling if it had not been broken ! The
chances like this are few, but the continual withdrawal from the
market of large numbers of pieces of old china mu.st have a marked
effect as time goes on, and an inevitable rise in prices must result.
Special pieces will command special prices. A tea service, Bristol,
blue border, etched in gold with oak leaves, marked with Dresden
crossed swords, thirty pieces, sold for £7 17s. 6d. a few years since.
To-day it would be cheap at £50. A bowl, circular, fluted, painted
with flowers, \\\ in. diameter, with a teapot, painted with flowers,
a teacup and saucer and two cream jugs, cost at auction £44 2s
BRISTOL 141
Two dishes, oval-shaped, painted with flowers in festoons and
sprays, gilt edges, £16 16s. Set of four figures, " The Quarters of
the Globe," %\ in. high, £24 3s. Figures, pair, emblematical of
Land and Water — a Woman with a lion, and a Man with a dolphin,
1\ in. high, £4 15s. Jug, small, shaped, painted with birds and
foliage, £6 16s. 6d. Dish, oval-shaped, fluted, and one kidney-
shaped, painted with bouquets and sprays of flowers, £15 4s. 6d.
Tankard, cylindrical, painted with flowers, and two bowls with
flowers and coloured borders, £9 19s. 6d. Teacups and saucers — two
— and a small tray, painted with medallion heads in gilt borders
and festoons of green laurel wreaths between, and a bowl and
cream jug, nearly similar, £168. Teacup and saucer, painted with
portrait medallions, green laurel festoons, gilt lines, and the inter-
laced initials " R.S.," being part of a service made by Champion
for Sir Robert Smith, £37 10s. Teapot and cover and a^bowl,
painted with bouquets of flowers, £7 15s. Teapot and cover.
Two Compotiers, sold for £270.
painted with festoons of flowers and portraits in oval medallions,
£12 5s. Tea service, painted with groups and sprigs of flowers
in colours, with brown edges, twenty-two pieces, £42. Tea service,
similarly painted, with gilt edges and handles, consisting of tea-
pot, cover, and hexagonal stands, milk jug, eight teacups, six
coffee cups, eight saucers, and a Plymouth cup and saucer, £39
18s. Dinner service, part of, consisting of four tureens, covers and
stands, with two ladles, sixteen dishes of various sizes, and twelve
plates, £76 6s. Vase, oviform, painted with flowers in colours and
mounted with Louis XV. ormolu scroll handles, rims, and feet,
\\\ in. high, £8 18s. 6d. Bowls, pair, fluted, painted with
bouquets of flowers, \\\ in. diameter, £28 7s. Cabaret, decorated
142 OLD CHINA
with festoons of foliage in green and horizontal gilt lines, com-
prising oval plateau, teapot, sucrier and cover, milk jug, cup and
saucer, marked with the Dresden crossed swords, £27 6s. Figures,
pair. Lady with tambourine and Gentleman with lyre, 1 1 in. high,
£52 10s. Two compotiers (see illustration), Edkin's sale, £270.
Examples could be multiplied, but they all tell the same tale when
compared with the values set upon Bristol at the present day. It
is worth buying for the rise.
-LONDON OPINION''
^or
CURIO CLUB /.
CONNOISSEURS
& COLLECTORS,
AT THE GALLERY,
107, REGENT STREET,
LONDON, W.
(^NEAR THE NEW PICCADILLY HOTEL.')
TELEPHONE No. 14147 CENTRAL.
The Subscription to the Curio Club is
MEMBER- ,, ui • J
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No OTHER LIABILITY IS INCURRED.
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2. A written description of any article
PRIVILEGES, intended for sale must be sent to the
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ACCEPTED, it can be sent at Member's risk and
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AND Address must be enxlosed in every parcel
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4, Members can have any article returned to them
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5. The Commission chargeable upon
COMMISSION j^rticles sold whilst in charge ot the
ON SALES. ^
Gallery, or through its instrumentality,
is 10 per cent, on sale price of all articles. Members
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risk if found to be unsaleable.
7. Preliminary advice will be given to
FREE
_ Members as to the approximate value
ADVICE. . ,
of any accepted article, but such advice
and [opinion will not involve any liability or responsibility
on the part of the Management. The fullest inform.ation
.should be given and photographs sent.
8. It expert opinion is required away
OPINION
EXPERT ^^^^ ^^^ ^^. -^ ^^^ l^g obtained at
Member's written request, and will be
charged for as moderately as possible, consistently with
the employment of a properly qualified valuer. In no
case will expert opinion be charged unless the amount
of the fee is agreed to by the Member requiring it.
London
Opinion weekiy.
A. MORETON MaNDEVILLE.
THE
BEST WRITERS and ARTISTS.
CRISP
PARAGRAPHS,
WITTY JOKES,
AND
FASCINATING
SHORT STORIES.
LONDON & PARIS EXCHANGE,
LIMITED.
(Ibouse, ILanb, anD lEetate Bepartinent.)
PROPERTY OWNERS
Should apply to ws for particulars of the System we have
inaugurated to bring buyer and seller together. We advertise
your property at our own expense, and adopt other means
to ensure a sale taking place.
DEPARTMENTS.
Cottages.
Residences.
Country Houses.
Mansions.
Valuations.
Town Residences.
Suburban Houses.
Flats, Shops.
Investments.
Mortgages.
Apply for partiailars and terms —
Land & Estate Department,
27, CHARLES STREET, ST /AMES'S,
S.W,
How to Buy
a Motor
• • •
. at a
Bargain
• •
Price.
Every description of Car on Sale, and
all have been examined by ajt expert. Call
or write —
London & Paris Exchange, Ltd.,
MOTOR AGENCY:
55-59, SHAFTESBURY AVENUE, W.
(Near the Trocadero.)
A Pamplilet explaining fully how a Motor can be
bought at a bargain price, or how a Motor can be
advantageously sold, will be sent free on application.
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY
Los Angeles
This book is DUE on the last date stamped below.
DEC 12 1950'
*^E6 1 2 1951 /
DEC 2 ^ 1953
OCT 2 7 19§4(
JAN 26 195
^
15
MAR 2
1 'ia';o
FormL9 — 15m-10,'48 (B1039)444
jonannesliurg —
II, Exploration Buildings. P.O. Box 3106.
Bombay —
Rampart Row.
Canada —
TORONTO.
Licensed by the Government of Ontario to deal in Stocks and Shares.
Foreign Agencies —
BERLIN, ANTWERP, AMSTERDAM, NEW YORK and SALISBURY.
Uelepbonc— '
3400 London Wall (6 lines).
Uclegranis an^ Cablegrams (private umire)—
*• Plenarily, London."
Co^es—
A.B.C., via Eastern ; Moreing and Neal, Bedford McNeil
(Western Union) ; Broomhall ; London 6 Paris Exchange
PriTate Code.
A. MORETON MANDEVILLE,
Ataaaging Director.
(:
t
8-
\0 a
PLEA*^?: DO NOT REMOVE
THIS BOOK CARD ',
^(f/OJlTVDJO^
University Researcln Library
^A
CD
THE LIBRARY
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
LOS ANGELES
A A 000^86 370 2
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY
Los Angeles
This book is DUE on the last date stamped below.
LD
URL JUL i2%ri
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Form L9-Series 444
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