Vase from a set of three, Chelsea, about 1760, with gilt relief decoration on a mazarine-blue ground. Height, 11½ in. Schreiber Collection.
No. 241. See p. [81].
Unmarked.
The change in management in 1783, when Thomas Flight and his sons took over the control of the works, did not at first bring with it a serious deterioration in the quality of the china. A new decorative style was adopted in compliance with the fashion of the day, but the same quiet tastefulness was the keynote of the decoration. The sober designs in dark blue and gold almost equal those of Derby in their suitability for the embellishment of table wares. It is not till the beginning of the nineteenth century that a noticeable decline sets in, but from that time forward the Worcester wares, whether made in the original factory or by the rival firm of Chamberlains, become increasingly lacking in interest. All artistic qualities are smothered in overloaded decoration, ungainly shapes, and unrestrained lavishment of gilding.
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It was a Quaker apothecary of Plymouth, William Cookworthy by name, whose discovery of deposits of kaolin and china clay in the neighbouring Duchy enabled him in 1768 to obtain a patent for the first English factory of true porcelain of the Chinese type. The serious difficulties with which he had to contend led to the removal of the establishment two years later to Bristol, where it was placed under the management of Richard Champion. In 1773 the patent rights were transferred entirely to the latter, and for eight years he continued in the face of many discouragements to carry on the manufacture; special interest attaches to it on account of Champion’s personal relations with Edmund Burke, at that time Member of Parliament for Bristol. Forms and decoration were borrowed more from Meissen and Sèvres than from Oriental types, nor were they as a rule literal copies, but rather adaptations from the originals. While the harmonious blending of the enamels with the glaze, which is so pleasing a feature of soft-paste china, was necessarily absent from the Bristol productions, great brilliancy of colouring was obtained without involving garishness of effect, as may be seen from [Plate 28], drawn from a vase in the Schreiber Collection. The fanciful birds are not original creations of the Bristol painter, but reflect the type commonly seen on early pieces of Vincennes and Sèvres; the quiet dignity of the shape, on the other hand, is thoroughly characteristic of the best English work.
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The minor English factories of the eighteenth century, such as those of Longton Hall, in Staffordshire, Lowestoft, and Caughley, were either of too short a duration to arrive at any high level of technical attainment, or were devoted almost entirely to the manufacture of commonplace wares for ordinary domestic uses. The great extension of the porcelain industry in this country, which signalised the opening of the nineteenth century, was not productive of any noteworthy results from an artistic point of view. At the short-lived Welsh factories of Nantgarw and Swansea, it is true, a glassy paste was invented which was shown to be capable of beautiful effects, but the numerous Staffordshire firms and the famous Rockingham works at Swinton in Yorkshire fell under the ban of the same artistic decadence that has been noticed in speaking of Derby and Worcester; they saved themselves from financial disasters by following the demands instead of guiding the taste of a severely commercial age. Those who are in search of what is beautiful or vital in English porcelain will be content to confine their attentions to the eighteenth century.
PLATE 2