Delft was presumably being made in this country fifty years before that by Dutch refugees, but the thirties of the seventeenth century was not a very happy time to inaugurate the birth of a new branch of art in England. The rumblings of the civil war were in the air. It was in 1642 that Charles precipitated matters by going with an armed force to the House of Commons to arrest five members; and seven years later he lost his head in Whitehall. It is not until the last years of Charles II. that there appears to be any documentary evidence connected with the actual manufacture of delft in England. John Ariens van Hamme, evidently a Dutch refugee, a potter working at Lambeth, took out a patent for making "tiles and porcelain after the way practised in Holland." The word "porcelain" was used somewhat indiscriminately at this date and apparently meant anything having the appearance of the wares coming over in large numbers from the East, imported by our East India Company.
LAMBETH DELFT WINE BOTTLE.
Inscribed "Sack WKE 1652."
(At British Museum.)
BRISTOL DELFT WARE.
(About 1784.)
Representing balloon ascent, two figures in car, with Union Jack flying.
(In the possession of Mr. W. L. Yeulett.)
Lambeth Delft.—To Lambeth must be accredited the best results of English delft ware. The glaze is thinner and whiter than is used elsewhere and the tone of the blue is less crude. It is difficult to differentiate between the work of Dutch refugees and of English born potters. Drug pots and sack bottles formerly imported from Holland began to be made at Lambeth. Some of these bottles are dated and the dates upon them range from 1649, the year of the execution of King Charles I., to 1664, during the early years of the reign of Charles II., the year in which New York, then New Amsterdam, a Dutch settlement, was surrendered to the English.
There are not a great number of these authentic dated sack bottles known. Lambeth must also be credited with the series of plates having dates and initials, and with some of the "blue dash" chargers or dishes. These are usually decorated with blue dashes clumsily applied round the edge, sometimes brown is used instead of blue. In the centre of the dish is generally a figure, often on horseback, and the foliage of the trees in the background is done with a sponge hastily applied. The range of colours used is not great—blue, green, orange, puce, and brown. Sometimes four colours are found on one dish, but not infrequently the decorator has been content with two, in addition to blue, which is nearly always present.
The following are among the subjects found on these dishes, which are usually about thirteen inches in diameter:—Charles I., Charles II., James II., William and Mary, William on foot or on horseback, Queen Anne, the Old Pretender, Duke of Marlborough, Duke of Monmouth, and the celebrated Adam and Eve dishes, in which Eve was represented as Queen Mary giving a kingdom to her husband, represented by an orange as a pun on his royal house. Although portraits of Charles I. appear in this series, they are not contemporary, and were probably not made at Lambeth until after about 1670, and their manufacture continued for a little over a quarter of a century, that is, until the opening years of the reign of George I.