Amelia Hallam,
1773.
In the late Mr. Reed’s possession, too, was a double-handled drinking cup of elegant form, with the name Iohn Alsebrook, and the date 1795, within an enamelled border of roses and foliage, and having on the other side a Chinese figure subject, also enamelled.
Fig. 873.
That this kind of ware was not made extensively at Swinton until after the dissolution of partnership with Hartley, Greens & Co., is perhaps to be easily accounted for in the fact that these proprietors of the Leeds Pottery, where it was manufactured so extensively and so well, being also partners here, the cream ware would be made principally at Leeds, while at the Swinton Works was produced what had not been made at the other place. From the time the works fell entirely into the hands of the Bramelds, however, this kind of ware became the staple production of the manufactory, and an immense trade was carried on in it in the Baltic and elsewhere. Not being marked, it probably often passes for Leeds ware in the eyes of collectors. In this material beautiful open-work baskets, and many other elegant articles, were made.
Transfer printing was introduced at Swinton, at all events, as early, as I have shown, as 1788, and was continued to the close of the works. In the later years, some extremely tasteful groups of flowers, butterflies, &c., were engraved and transferred in outline, and then painted in the usual manner. In dinner, tea, toilet, and other services, the designs were extremely good, and one of them, the Don Quixote pattern, became very popular.
Engine-turned tea and coffee pots, plates, &c., were also manufactured, and in manipulation were equal to any produced in ordinary earthenware. Groups of flowers, figures, trophies, borders, &c., in relief, were also introduced.
Figs. 874 to 876.
In “china” the earliest examples are two trial pieces by Mr. Thomas Brameld, which I saw in the possession of his son, the late Dr. Brameld. These are a pair of small leaves, the body of which is of good quality, painted of a salmon colour with gold veins. These are probably of the date 1820–2, and but few trials were made from that time until 1825. In 1826 china ware began to be made largely, and from that time (in this year it will be remembered the works changed their name from “Swinton” to “Rockingham”) to 1842 was one series of successes in all but profit. Tea, coffee, dinner, dessert, toilet, and other services, were made in every variety of style, from the ordinary blue printed, or white with raised blue ornaments, to the most elaborately painted and gilt varieties. Vases, and numberless ornamental articles for the drawing-room and the toilet were also made, and were generally distinguished by good taste in design, and skill in decoration. To show how Art was, by the taste of the Bramelds, made subservient to the production of things of every-day use, I give, in Figs. [874 to 876], three examples in Mr. Manning’s possession.