The factory at Chelsea was situated beyond the west extremity of the original Cheyne Row, just before you come to the old church. The works extended for some distance along the west side of Lawrence Street. Nothing is left of them now, but during some excavations made near at hand, in 1843, many fragments of porcelain were found. These pieces belong, it would seem, to an early period of the manufacture.
We have already pointed out that neither the Chelsea works, nor indeed any other English porcelain factory, at any time received direct financial support either from the royal family or from the Government. Sir Everard Fawkner, however, secretary to the Duke of Cumberland, was a collector of china, and took some interest in the works. It was through his influence, perhaps, that the ‘butcher of Culloden’ appears at one time to have been brought, in some way, into connection with the Chelsea factory.[217] Again, soon after his accession, the young King George iii. sent to the Duke of Mecklenburg a complete service of Chelsea porcelain which cost £1200. This is, I think, our first known instance in England of royal patronage, even in this restricted sense.
In common with the other porcelain made at the time, the decoration, and even the shapes, of much of the early ware of Chelsea were derived from Oriental models. Of these Eastern types, the ‘wheatsheaf and partridge’ (more properly quail) was most in favour. The Chelsea imitations of the old Japanese ware are distinguished by the abundant use of a heavy iron-red enamel. There are several specimens of this ware at South Kensington, but I would call attention, above all, to a very curious compotier in the Jermyn Street collection.[218] This dish has a brown rim, and round the margin a quaint decoration of foxes amid clusters of red grapes. This is a very old Chinese motif, only we should have squirrels in place of foxes. But the Chelsea ‘Kakiyemon’ never equalled that of Chantilly, or perhaps even the copies made at Bow. On the other hand, the Chelsea plates made in imitation of the brocaded ‘old Japan’ are unsurpassed among European wares ([Pl. xlv]). Equally early, perhaps, are the plates and dishes with decorations of flowers and birds on a large scale sprawling over the surface. In these last examples the colours are poor and heavy, and the general execution very rough. Many of the plain white pieces also belong to this early period.[219]
In the year 1754 Sprimont introduced the system of periodic sales by auction;[220] and we can in some measure trace the progress of the manufacture in the advertisements and in the rare catalogues that have been preserved. Thus in the advertisement of the first sale of 1754 we already find mention of groups of figures. The next sale, a few months later, was made up of ‘the entire Stock of Porcelain toys ... Snuff-boxes, Smelling-Bottles, Etwees, and Trinkets for Watches (mounted in Gold and unmounted) in various beautiful Shapes of an elegant Design and curiously painted in Enamel.’ There was also in this sale a large parcel of porcelain hafts for table and dessert knives and forks.
This is the first mention that we have of these fascinating little ‘toys and trinkets.’ They often bear inscriptions in a somewhat lame French, which we might have looked for rather on the rival wares of ‘Stratford-atte-Bowe’ than at a factory where we have reason to believe more than one Frenchman was employed. Of these toys a representative collection was made by Lady Charlotte Schreiber, and there are many charming specimens in the British Museum. We must remember that about this time, and perhaps earlier (1740-50), Saint-Cloud and, above all, Mennecy, were turning out a similar class of objects.
The Chelsea sale of 1756 is the earliest of which a catalogue has been preserved, and in it we find the first mention of the ‘mazareen’ blue, a colour after this time largely used as a ground for the more elaborate vases, both at Chelsea and at other English factories. The rage for porcelain was then at its height, and we see traces of this in the advertisements of the time; but in 1757 Sprimont fell ill, and little was made at Chelsea. In 1759 the collection of Chelsea porcelain made by the already-mentioned Sir Everard Fawkner, lately deceased, was sold by auction. The sale occupied several days, and in the advertisement we come across the earliest reference to the use of green en camaïeu—‘a tea and coffee equipage, exquisitely painted in green landscapes.’
It was about this time, Professor Church thinks, that the artificial frit-paste was replaced at Chelsea by one containing a large quantity of bone-ash (as much as fifty per cent. in some cases). The earlier material of the French type must have been very difficult to work, and it softened so readily in the kiln that many specimens were spoiled in the firing. It had, however, a certain mellow charm given by its translucency and by the close unison of paste and glaze, that was never equalled in the later material.
Indeed the high-water mark of the Chelsea factory was reached in the years that succeeded Sprimont’s first illness of 1757. It was then that the use of gilding became more general.[221] The gold was laid on by means of an amalgam, the mercury being expelled by the heat of the muffle. The result, after burnishing, was to give a brilliant surface of pure gold unlike the solid chiselled lines and bands of dullish surface seen on Sèvres china. But from an artistic point of view this result is not very satisfactory—indeed, nothing has helped more to give a certain garish and vulgar air to much of the English porcelain made at this time.
In the notice of the spring sale of 1760, Sprimont sings the praises of ‘a few pieces of some new colours that have been found this year at a very large expense, incredible labour and close application.’ Among these new colours we must probably reckon the beautiful claret or deep purplish crimson, the one colour of our English porcelain that has never been surpassed or even equalled on the Continent. It differs from the contemporary rose Pompadour not only by the greater intensity of its hue, but by being a transparent colour. This claret is, of course, derived from the purple of Cassius, and the peculiar tint is said to be due to the addition to the gold of a small amount of silver. Among the other colours introduced at this time was probably a blue made in imitation of the famous turquoise of Sèvres. This blue is very rare as a ground colour at Chelsea, and the tint is generally greenish and opaque. It is found at its best on a large vase in the British Museum with open-work cover and handles. In a diluted form the turquoise blue is often found as a wash upon the drapery of statuettes. The rose Pompadour of Sèvres was also imitated at a later date, but not very successfully.
This is the time of the more ambitious vases, with a monochrome ground generally of deep blue and reserved panels painted with pastoral or mythological subjects, or with fantastic ‘exotic’ birds and flowers. The painting, even in the finest examples, never attained the delicacy of the Sèvres prototype, and it is often lamentably inefficient, but at the same time this very rudeness of execution sometimes adds to the decorative effect of the ensemble. These vases are above all distinguished by the strangely contorted shapes that Sprimont so loved to give to the handles, covers, and feet. All these points are well illustrated in the vases (made in the years 1762 and 1763) that Dr. Garnier gave to the Foundling Hospital and to the British Museum. The painting on these specimens is particularly bad and heavy. The mythological subjects, in the style of Boucher, on the famous garniture with claret ground, now belonging to Lord Burton, show a greater delicacy—in execution at least. This exaggerated rococo treatment—in the extreme forms even the bilateral symmetry is abandoned—was doubtless suggested by the forms of the ormolu mountings (for handles and feet especially) then much in vogue.[222]