The joint-stock company which now owns the Worcester factory was founded in 1862. Since that time great efforts have been made to keep on a level with the artistic movements of the day. Much attention has been paid to the modelling of the handles, the stands and the covers of the vases, so that some of them are works of art by themselves. The porcelain has been designed and decorated in ‘the style of the Italian renaissance,’ in the ‘French style,’ then for a time a Japanese influence prevailed, to be followed by vases in ‘Persian style,’ and then back to the ‘Florentine renaissance’ once more. But running through the whole, we may perhaps trace a soupçon of the French art of the later nineteenth century.
Apart from the imitative marks of the early period which we have already mentioned, we find at an early date the letter W, either for Wall or Worcester (so the D of the rival works may stand either for Derby or Duesbury). Another early mark, borrowed probably from Frye and the Bow works, is the T. F. monogram which occurs on some underglaze blue and white pieces. The crescent ([Pl. e]. 77), used up to 1793, is chiefly found on ware decorated with transfer printing: when this printing is in blue under the glaze, a solid or ruled crescent is found. The later firms, as ‘Flight and Barr’ and ‘Chamberlain,’ print their names in full. A number of small marks found on Worcester china—more than seventy have been noted—were added in most cases to identify the painters and gilders.
Smaller West of England Soft-Paste Factories.
This will be the most convenient place to say something of a small group of factories where china was made towards the end of the eighteenth century. It is a distinctly West of England family, owing its origin in a measure to Worcester, but also forming a link between that factory and the Staffordshire works. We include in it the Shropshire porcelains of Caughley and Coalbrookdale, together with Swansea and Nantgarw.
Caughley.—The ‘Salopian Porcelain Works’ were started in 1772 at Caughley, near Broseley, in Shropshire, a neighbourhood long famous for its earthenware. It was here that Thomas Turner, a man of some social standing who came from Worcester, devoted himself more especially to printing in blue under the glaze. It was at Caughley, it would seem, about 1780, that the famous ‘willow pattern’ was first used. There is in the British Museum a curious little oblong dish that shows this design in an undeveloped form. Turner, it is said, first printed complete dinner-services, in dark blue, with this pattern. Not long after this he went to France, and brought back a batch of French painters, whose influence may perhaps be seen in the ware made at a later time at Coalport. Some of the printed work is delicately executed, and when the decoration is judiciously heightened with a little gilding, the effect is not unpleasing. We hear also of dinner-services painted with ‘Chantille sprigs,’ and Turner also supplied Chamberlain with plain white ware to be subsequently decorated at Worcester. At a later time much gilding was applied to a richly decorated porcelain. Some of this ware is stamped with the word ‘Salopian,’ other pieces have the letters S or C printed or painted under the glaze; but both Dresden and even Worcester marks were also used. Two men, at a later time representatives of the industrial phase of porcelain, John Rose and Thomas Minton, were trained in these short-lived works.
Coalport or Coalbrookdale.—Here, on the left bank of the Severn, nearly opposite the last-named factory, John Rose began making porcelain soon after 1780. In 1799 he purchased from Turner (whose apprentice he had been) the Caughley works, and in 1814 he removed the whole plant to Coalbrookdale. Here, too, came Billingsley after the closing of the Nantgarw works, and here he worked till his death in 1828. During the first half of the nineteenth century the firm of John Rose and Company was a successful rival to the Davenports, Mintons, and Copelands. Rose excelled in the production of gorgeous vases decorated with picture panels, and Billingsley kept up the supply of his English roses. The older wares of Sèvres and Chelsea were copied not unsuccessfully, and the appropriate mark was not omitted. The firm seems to have above all prided itself upon the beauty of its rose Pompadour grounds, and at a later time, after 1850, both this ground and the turquoise blue were largely applied to the pseudo-Sèvres porcelain that found its way to the London china-shops. In 1820 Rose was granted a medal by the Society of Arts for a leadless glaze, compounded of felspar and borax. The factory at Coalport continues to produce much china on the same lines.
Near at hand, at Madeley, some very close imitations of the old Sèvres were made by Randall between 1830 and 1840. For the origin of this English Sèvres we must go back to the year 1813, when we hear of the agents of London dealers buying up white and slightly decorated Sèvres soft paste. Any enamel colour on them was removed by hydrofluoric acid, and the surface was richly decorated in the Pompadour style. Randall soon after this time was engaged with similar work in London: his turquoise blues are especially praised.
Plate XLVII
