It is obvious that with these rich colours of Staffordshire porcelain side by side in the same factory, with earthenware, the latter began to assume all the decorative appearance of porcelain. A reign of colour set in. Earthenware was as lavishly decorated in colours, and as richly gilded as any of the contemporary porcelains, and in putting on these colours it lost all its old characteristic features and became an echo of porcelain.
Before leaving the Spode family, it may be mentioned that Josiah Spode the second, who died in 1827, aged seventy-three, was succeeded by his son, Josiah Spode the third, who died within two years.
William Copeland had died in 1826, and in 1833 the factory at Stoke came into the hands of W. T. Copeland, known as Alderman Copeland, as he then was, of the City of London. He became Lord Mayor of London in 1835, and in that year took Thomas Garrett into partnership. Copeland and Garrett is the name of the firm till 1847. For twenty years it was known as "W. T. Copeland, late Spode," and is now at the present day Messrs. W. T. Copeland & Sons.
The marks belonging to the firm at various dates are given at the end of this chapter. We illustrate a row of five remarkably fine earthenware vases decorated in rich colour in the Derby style, so perfectly simulating the brush work of that famous porcelain factory, that upon a hasty examination they would pass for Crown-Derby. They evidently belong to the days when Josiah Spode was turning out at Stoke more Japan patterns than were produced at Derby.
At the same time a good deal of less ornate earthenware for cottage use was being made, and specimens may frequently be met with, such as tea-sets with old-fashioned teapot and two-handled sugar-bowl made about 1825. Their homely English rural subjects are very pleasing, and show that there was still a large market in the country for simple ware without any great pretensions to foreign taste. It was the last stage of the great tradition of old English earthenware.
Davenport (1793–1880).—John Davenport, of Longport in Staffordshire, began potting in 1793. There is no doubt that he was a great potter with artistic instincts. He went to France prior to 1800, and on his return introduced a porcelain body superior to anything then produced in England. With Josiah Spode the second he claims more attention as a maker of porcelain than of earthenware. But his earthenware is highly prized by collectors. His blue-printed ware was exceptionally fine, and he followed in his plates and dishes the style of Turner and of Minton in the perforated rims. His stone china is well potted and carefully painted, and in design he was not loth to follow Mason of whom we shall speak later. Many specimens of the familiar type of jug associated with Mason's name, of octagonal shape are found in porcelain. Some collectors noticing the great similarity to Mason have been inclined to attribute these porcelain jugs to him, and doubtless, as Mason made china, many are his, but Davenport who made replicas of the Mason stoneware jugs, being a maker of porcelain too, is likely to have produced these porcelain replicas also. None of these porcelain jugs appears to be marked.
Davenport ware is strong in colour, and follows the rich designs of Spode. Some pieces of stoneware are richly gilt, and have finely painted fruit-pieces and landscapes, some probably by Steel from the Derby factory. The illustration ([p. 447]) of the highest flight of Mason typifies this class of landscape ware. Swansea, in common with Staffordshire, had not hesitated in painting earthenware with landscape subjects hitherto employed only by artists who decorated porcelain.
The Davenport marks are given at the end of this chapter, and are always prized when found on specimens, as Davenport did not mark his ware so freely as did Spode. From 1835 the firm became "William Davenport & Co.," and later "Davenport & Co.," and ceased about 1880.
