Parallels in English Craftsmanship.—In regard to Sheffield plated ware, if it be advanced that it was imitative of old silver and therefore negligible, we must claim as a parallel old English earthenware, where, although the technique differed from that of the potting of porcelain, it did simulate porcelain, and examples of the one are found in replica of the other. As to production the reason for imitativeness is often to effect economy. Nor should this be anathema in art. Undoubtedly Staffordshire and all its products struck hard at the English porcelain factories. But, in spite of its initial imitativeness and its wary regard for competitive lines, it did win a path of its own. There the parallel ceases because earthenware was made in England prior to porcelain.
Imitativeness in various arts is common enough. The glass-worker and the potter copied the silversmith. The cabinet-maker was indebted to both and vice versa. We find acanthus ornament in wood and in metal, the strapwork of the Tudor carver on wood and on silver. The cupid in metal on the Stuart clock case is duplicated in the stretcher of the chair carved in walnut, and is found in stone at Hampton Court and St. Paul's in similar ornament. Wedgwood snatched the topographical designs from copper-plate engravings to decorate his service for Catherine II of Russia, depicting English country seats and views. Chippendale borrowed from the Chinese, and echoed Marot, the French designer, in his original designs which burst upon the town in his Director.
Nor does it seem to trouble the collector of china overmuch that Worcester copied oriental models and even used a spurious Chinese mark, that Bow boldly proclaimed itself as "New Canton," and copied Worcester, and that Lowestoft copied both. The invention of transfer printing upon china is claimed by Worcester, by Liverpool and by Battersea, and all three employed designs which were not original. The whole school of designs transfer-printed upon china is imitative, many of them had already appeared as illustrations to books.
Take another art, that of stipple engraving printed in colours. Here indeed is an imitative art. An engraving in black and white is a translation of a subject in colours. When printed in colours it sets out to be imitative of another art. But collectors have not been shy to give as much as four figures for some of these eighteenth century colour prints, greater prices even than the original paintings would bring under the hammer. The subject is illimitable and provocative of much argument.
SOUP TUREEN AND LADLE CARVED IN PEAR-WOOD.
(At the Wedgwood Museum at Etruria.)
FRUIT DISH AND STAND CARVED IN PEAR-WOOD.
(At the Wedgwood Museum at Etruria.)