FRANKS COLL. B.M.
HARD PORCELAIN TEAPOT, MADE AND DECORATED IN CHINA, BUT MARKED ‘ALLEN, LOWESTOFT’; IN THE VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM
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That they never manufactured such a porcelain at Lowestoft has no longer to be demonstrated; it remains to be proved that they sold it, and that the misconception as to its origin arose from no other cause. We must remember, in the first instance, that the proprietors of the works were also ship-owners, conducting a small trade with Holland. They exported English clays and raw materials for the use of the Delft potters, and brought back, in return, articles of Dutch faïence, often painted with names and inscriptions, for which they accepted commissions from private customers. We know, next, that Rotterdam was the centre of the mighty commerce carried on between Holland and China. It may, then, be fairly assumed that while engaged in the trade of common Delft ware, they conceived the idea of entering into communication with the wholesale importers of Chinese porcelain from whom they could purchase large supplies, and establishing in England a highly-remunerative branch of business by underselling the East India company. ¶ It was customary with the Dutch firms to send over to their foreign settlements shapes and designs obtained from European sources, to be reproduced by native hands. Models from Dresden, Sèvres, and even from Leeds or the Staffordshire potteries, were constantly copied in oriental porcelain. The Lowestoft people did what all other merchants had done before them, and through the same channel forwarded to China the designs of coats-of-arms, English mottoes, and initials that were to be painted on the porcelain they had undertaken to supply. In the Henry Willett collection is an armorial plate decorated in the usual Indo-European style, and inscribed, at the back, with its certificate of origin: CANTON IN CHINA 24th Jan. 1791. Commissions of that kind were received from the leading families of the neighbourhood and duly executed; hence the number of local patronymics that Chaffers noticed on the porcelain in the possession of many inhabitants of the town, who honestly believed that it had been made by the very men from whom it had been purchased. ¶ In 1770 the business had taken sufficient extension to induce the partners to open a warehouse in Queen Street, Cheapside. Their agent, Clark Dunford, inserted in the London papers an announcement in which he advertised ‘a large selection of Lowestoft china.’ We possess no information as to what may have been the exact description of the goods advertised under that name, but we may safely surmise that it was something superior to ‘A trifle from Lowestoft’ or any of the articles we know to have been the staple production of the works. It seems that a more attractive exhibition might have been formed in the show-room by a stock of Chinese porcelain imported by the Lowestoft company. ¶ I feel convinced that conclusive proofs of this elucidation of the Lowestoft puzzle will one day come to light; in the meantime, it cannot be denied that it is strongly supported by the following facts: It is recorded, on good authority, that the ruin of the company was caused by the wreck of one of their vessels carrying a cargo of porcelain, and the burning, by the French army, of the warehouse they had established at Rotterdam. The idea that the enormous amount of ware required to load a vessel and to fill a large warehouse in Rotterdam, not to speak of the one in London, could have been supplied by a one-oven factory, is too ludicrous to be entertained for one moment, and it may be dismissed without further comment. ¶ It has been suggested that the Lowestoft painters may have decorated ware imported from China in the white. By reason of the ubiquity of the porcelain decorated in the accredited style, and the small number of hands employed at the factory, such a suggestion is equally untenable. A hard porcelain teapot, unmistakably painted by a Chinese hand, which is marked ‘Allen, Lowestoft,’ is reproduced on the opposite page. Robert Allen was manager of the works up to the last. When they closed he set up a small china shop in the town, decorating himself part of the articles he sold. His supply was drawn from various sources, including oriental. Far from being deceived by such misleading testimonies, we may only infer from this tea-pot that the dealer was wont to affix his name to all that passed through his hands, even upon such pieces as had been decorated abroad. This curious specimen is now in the Victoria and Albert museum. ¶ The so-called Lowestoft style is characterized by sprays and garlands of flowers, in which two peculiar pink and purple colours play a conspicuous part, and by scalloped borders of the scale or trellis patterns. Similar designs appear on the early china and earthenware of Staffordshire. The last partisans of the Chaffers theory—for all the offshoots of the mystification have not yet been fully eradicated—believe that such pieces afford irrefutable examples of the Lowestoft original production. This is an error that must be discarded with the others. To imitate Chinese decoration has always been the golden rule of the English potter; just as he had reproduced the fine Nankin porcelain, he also copied the quasi-European ware manufactured for exportation by the East India company, and this all the more readily that it could be easily and cheaply produced. The well-known scale borders and the sprays of pink and purple roses occur frequently on the early china of Minton, Spode and other makers. These designs were obviously taken from the Chinese importations, and did not originate in the Potteries any more than they originated at Lowestoft. ¶ From the few authenticated specimens that have come under the collector’s notice we gather that the paste of the genuine Lowestoft porcelain is coarse, semi-opaque, and of a dingy white; the glaze is speckled with bubbles and minute black spots, which denote a rather imperfect manufacture. It is poorly decorated, and under these conditions we understand that it was not preciously preserved in the households; at all events, it has now become very rare. No mark was ever used at the factory, and the specific character of the ware is not sufficiently pronounced to allow us to use such undoubted examples as we possess as a means of identifying those which may have escaped destruction.
PORTRAIT OF THE EMPRESS ISABELLA BY TIZIANO VECELLIO; IN THE PRADO MUSEUM, MADRID.
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TITIAN’S PORTRAIT OF THE EMPRESS ISABELLA
❧ WRITTEN BY GEORG GRONAU[87] ❧