Figs. 560 to 565.—Worcester Porcelain.
Fig. 566.
In majolica the Worcester works produce many splendid varieties of articles, and many spirited and beautiful designs. Dessert services, floral table decorations, shell-pieces, spill-cases, and vases are among the articles produced. The body is finer and more compact than that frequently used by manufacturers, and the colouring is faultless and in the purest taste. It was a wise thought to graft this branch of ceramic art on to that of the finest porcelain at Worcester, and its rapid development shows how thoroughly it has been appreciated.
But it is not in ornamental goods only that these works take high rank. They produce every possible variety, from the simple gold and white to the most highly decorated tea, coffee, déjeûner, dinner, toilet, and other services. These are produced in very large quantities, and form a staple and constantly increasing branch of the manufacture; and in all these, however simple, the same purity of taste in patterns is displayed as in the rarer and more costly gems of art.
It is a common belief that high art and commercial success cannot go hand in hand,—that to make things sell you must sink art—or that, if you produce high art examples, you must give up all expectations of a remunerative trade. This theory I do not believe in. I hold it to be the mission of the manufacturer, in whatever branch he may be engaged, to produce such goods as shall tend to educate the public taste, and to lead it gradually upwards to a full appreciation of the beautiful. The manufacturer is quite as much a teacher as the writer or the artist, and he is frequently a much more effectual one. In pottery especially, where the wares of one kind or other are hourly in the hands of every person in the kingdom, it behoves the manufacturers to produce such perfect forms, and to introduce such ornamentation, even in the commonest and coarsest ware, as shall teach the eye, and induce a taste for whatever is beautiful and perfect and lovely in art. The mission of the manufacturer is to create a pure taste, not to perpetuate and pander to a vicious and barbarous one; and I believe, in the end, that those who do their best to elevate the minds of the people by this means will find that, commercially, their endeavours will be most satisfactory—assuredly they will be the most pleasant to their own minds. The Worcester people seem to understand this thoroughly, and to have wisely determined that nothing, even of the most simple design or common use, which is not pure in taste and elegant in form shall be issued from their works.
The marks of Messrs. Kerr and Binns were the following:—
But they had also another, a special mark, designed by Digby Wyatt, which is used solely for marking the goods made for her Majesty. In the mark (Fig. [568]) in the third quarter of the shield, left white in the engraving, the initials of Mr. Bott, the painter, are found on his beautiful enamels.