ENGLISH PORCELAIN--(_continued_).
THE HARD PASTE OF PLYMOUTH AND BRISTOL
The manufacture of true porcelain had but a short life in England. The
ware has no especial artistic merit, nor was it ever commercially of
much importance. And yet in the history of this short-lived attempt to
imitate the porcelain of China and Saxony, we find so many points (in
the composition and technique of the ware above all) that illustrate and
confirm what we have said in some early chapters, that we shall have to
follow up this history somewhat closely.
Moreover, the two men, thanks to whose energy and scientific knowledge
the difficulties attending the first manufacture of the new substance
were overcome, interest us in more ways than one. There is, in the first
place, Cookworthy the quaker, who, once he had solved the practical
problem that had hitherto baffled all the potters and arcanists of
England and France, was content to return to a quiet life among the
little _coterie_ of ‘friends’ at Plymouth. The other is Champion, the
friend of Burke, who, after his business had been ruined by the American
War, preferred to end his life as a farmer in the new country, with
whose struggle for independence he had throughout sympathised.
The two letters of the Père D’Entrecolles on the manufacture of
porcelain in China were known through their publication in Du Halde’s
collection soon after the date (1722) at which the second one was
written. The search for the essential constituents of a true porcelain
at once began. One of the first results of this search was the
appearance of the ‘Unaker, the produce of the Cherokee nation of
America,’ which is mentioned in Frye’s patent of 1744. Shortly after the
middle of the century, as we learn from Borlase’s _History of Cornwall_
(published in 1758), the attention of more than one manufacturer of
porcelain was directed to that county. But no one probably was so well
equipped for the search as William Cookworthy, the druggist of
Plymouth--he was already thoroughly acquainted with the geology of the
county. Cookworthy, too, must have carefully studied the letters of the
Jesuit missionary. In the memoir written by him at a later date (it is
given in full in Owen’s _Two Centuries of Ceramic Art at Bristol_) he
clearly distinguishes ‘the _petunse_, the _Caulin_, and the _Wha-she_,’
or soapy rock.[245]
In fact it is this that gives to Cookworthy so important a place in the
history of porcelain. He was probably the first in Europe to attack
practically, and finally to conquer, the problem of making a true
porcelain strictly on the lines of the Chinese as interpreted by the
Père D’Entrecolles. Böttger’s success, if one is to accept the official
German account, was rather the result of some happy accident--an
accident, it is true, of which only a man of genius knows how to avail
himself.
Cookworthy had his attention directed to the subject by an American
quaker, of whom he writes, in May 1745: ‘I had lately with me the person
who hath discovered the China-earth. He had several examples of the
China ware of their making with him, which were, I think, equal to the
Asiatic; ... having read Du Halde, he discovered both the China-stone
and the Caulin.’[246]
Both the petuntse and the ‘Caulin’ were first identified by Cookworthy
at Tregonnin Hill (between Marazion and Helston)--this was about 1750.
The nature and mode of occurrence of both the growan or moor-stone and
of the growan clay, to use the local names, are admirably described by
him. Soon after this he found the two materials at St. Stephen’s,
between Truro and St. Austell, in the centre of what is now the great
china-clay district of Cornwall.
There must have been many experiments with the new materials, and many
failures, before the year 1768, when Cookworthy took out his patent, and
with the pecuniary assistance of Thomas Pitt of Boconnoc (later Lord
Camelford) started his factory at Plymouth. It is doubtful whether this
factory was in existence for more than two years. In any case there is
evidence that already, by the year 1770, the ‘Plymouth New Invented
Porcelain Manufactory’ was at work at Bristol.
We have proof, too, that before this time Richard Champion and others
had been working in the latter town with the new Cornish materials.
Champion had been asked by Lord Hyndford to make a report upon some
kaolin sent to him from South Carolina. In his reply he says: ‘I had it
tried at a manufactory set up some time ago on the principle of the
Chinese porcelain, but not being successful, is given up.... The
proprietors of the works in Bristol imagined they had discovered in
Cornwall all the materials similar to the Chinese; but though they burnt
the body part tolerably well, yet there were impurities in the glaze or
stone which were insurmountable even in the greatest fire they could
give it, and which was equal to the Glasshouse heat.... I have sent some
[_i.e_. of the Carolina clay] to Worcester, but this and all the English
porcelains being composed of frits, there is no probability of success.’
This is written in February 1766, before the date of Cookworthy’s
patent.[247]
Meantime, in France, two men of some scientific pretensions, both of
them members of the _Académie des Sciences_, Lauraguais[248] and
D’Arcet, had discovered the kaolin deposits near Alençon. Lauraguais had
soon after 1760 succeeded in making some kind of porcelain with the
materials he had found. He was, however, forestalled by Guettard, a
rival chemist in the service of the Duke of Orleans, who in November
1765 read a paper before the _Académie_ on the kaolin and petuntse of
Alençon. Lauraguais, in disgust, after a violent rejoinder, came over to
England.
In a curious letter dated April 1766, Dr. Darwin, writing to Wedgwood,
says: ‘Count Laragaut has been at Birmingham & offer’d ye Secret of
making ye finest old China as cheap as your Pots. He says ye materials
are in England. That ye secret has cost £16,000--y^{t}He will sell it
for £2000--He is a Man of Science, dislikes his own Country, was six
months in ye Bastile for speaking against ye Government--loves every
thing English’; but, adds Darwin, ‘I suspect his Scientific Passion is
stronger than perfect Sanity’ (Miss Meteyard, _Life of Wedgwood_, vol.
i. p. 436). Lauraguais, in 1766, proposed to take out a patent for
making not only the coarser species of china, but ‘the more beautiful
ware of the Indies and the finest of Japan.’ The specification was never
enrolled, and nothing came of it. There exist, however, a few specimens
of china marked with the letters B. L. (Brancas Lauraguais) in a flowing
hand, which are attributed to the Count.[249] The paste, says Professor
Church, is fine, hard, and of good colour. An analysis gives 58 per
cent. of silica, 36 per cent. of alumina, and 6 per cent. of other
bases. It will be observed that the percentage of alumina in this
porcelain is exceptionally high.
We see, therefore, that before the year 1770, when Cookworthy removed to
Bristol, true porcelain had been made in more than one place in England,
but not with enough success to allow the new ware to compete with the
soft pastes of Worcester and elsewhere. So in France, although the new
paste was introduced at Sèvres in 1769, it was only in 1774, so
Brongniart tells us, that the manufacture of hard porcelain was firmly
established.
Champion seems to have been on friendly terms with Cookworthy, and in
1773 he bought from the latter the entire patent rights. In the two
previous years much of the new porcelain had been made. It is claimed
for it in advertisements that, unlike the English china generally, it
will wear as well as the East Indian, and that the enamelled porcelain,
though nearly as cheap as the English blue and white, ‘comes very near,
and in some pieces equals, the Dresden, which this work more
particularly imitates.’ This is from a local journal of November 1772,
and we may add that not only the ware was imitated, but also the
well-known marks of Dresden.[250]
Now, if we turn from these general considerations to examine the nature
of the West of England ware, we find some difficulty in drawing a line
between the early, partly experimental, porcelain made at Plymouth and
the later, more successful, products of the Bristol kilns. Nor will the
mark, the alchemist’s sign for Jupiter[251] (PL. E. 83), first used on
the Plymouth porcelain, help us much, for the same mark was certainly
used to some extent after Cookworthy’s migration to Bristol.
To Plymouth we must attribute the plain white ware with a glaze of dull
hue, disfigured by dark lines where the glaze lies thick in the
interstices. Cookworthy, we know, attempted to make his glaze from the
Cornish stone without the addition of any other substances.[252] In
other cases he followed the recipe given by the Père D’Entrecolles, and
gave greater fusibility to the growan-stone by adding a small quantity
of a frit made from a mixture of lime and fern ashes. Cookworthy even
ventured to follow the Chinese plan, and applied the glaze to the raw
[Illustration: _PLATE XLVIII._ 1--PLYMOUTH, WHITE GLAZED WARE
2--BRISTOL, COLOURED ENAMELS]
or very slightly baked paste. The blue and white made by him, if we may
judge from the little mug in the British Museum, with the arms of
Plymouth and the date, March 14, 1768, was of very poor quality. The
Oriental designs on his enamelled porcelain seem to have come to him by
way of Chantilly. More successful was the plain white ware modelled in
relief, in a way that often calls to mind the early work of Bow. A good
example is the ‘Tridacna’ salt-cellar in the former Jermyn Street
collection.
At least one French modeller and enameller was employed at Plymouth, and
after the removal to Bristol we find the name of a German also. Henry
Bone, a Truro man, who afterwards became famous as a miniature-painter
in enamels, entered the works at Bristol as a lad, and passed there the
six years of his apprenticeship. Bone, who later on wrote R.A. after his
name, was the principal representative in England of the school of
painters in enamel upon slabs of porcelain, that played so important a
part at Sèvres at the beginning of the last century. At one time a
modeller of some skill must have been employed. Perhaps this was the
mysterious Soqui or Le Quoi.[253] Some little statuettes in the
Schreiber collection at South Kensington, ‘the Seasons,’ as represented
by boys and girls, are charmingly modelled. But we must not look for any
brilliancy of colour in the enamels. The highly infusible nature of the
paste, and what is even more important, of the glaze, added immensely to
the difficulty of obtaining anything of the kind. If we compare the
enamels on these statuettes with those on the Chelsea and Derby figures
in the same collection, the difference is at once apparent. The two most
important colours in the latter wares, the rose-pink and the turquoise,
it was impossible to develop at the high temperature required to soften
the refractory glaze of the hard porcelain. The greens, however, and the
coral reds of the Bristol figures are more successful. In the
specifications of 1775 there is mention of a glaze containing much
kaolin mixed with some arsenic and tin oxide.[254] Such a glaze might
allow of more brilliancy in the enamels, and it is to be noticed in this
connection that some statuettes long classed as Chelsea have only
comparatively lately been recognised as consisting of the Bristol paste.
Perhaps what we may regard as the most remarkable, certainly the most
original, work produced by Champion are the little circular or oval
plaques of white biscuit. These medallions vary from four to nine inches
in diameter. The central field contains a coat-of-arms modelled in low
relief, or more rarely a portrait bust, and among these last we find
heads of Benjamin Franklin and of George Washington, pointing to the
political sympathies of Champion. A wreath of flowers in full relief
surrounds the field--the sharpness and the finish in the modelling of
these minute leaves and blossoms has never been approached in this or
other material. In the manner of treatment, these wreaths are thoroughly
English, and we are reminded of the flowers carved in wood by Grinling
Gibbons (PL. XLIX.).
Champion made also a commoner ware, which he called ‘cottage china.’
This was summarily decorated in colours without any gilding. The glaze
on this ware was applied over the raw paste, on the Chinese plan that
had already been tried by Cookworthy.
Champion was an active politician and a vehement
[Illustration: _PLATE XLIX._ 1--BRISTOL, WHITE BISCUIT 2--BRISTOL,
WHITE GLAZED WARE]
supporter of the American colonists in their dispute with the mother
country. The visit of Edmund Burke to Bristol in 1774, and his election
as member for the city, may be regarded as the climax of his career.
Then it was that the famous tea-set was presented by Champion and his
wife to Mrs. Burke, as a _pignus amicitiæ_. Still more elaborately
decorated was the other service that Burke gave to Mrs. Smith, the wife
of the friend of Champion, at whose house he stayed on this occasion.
The shapes and the decoration of this service were founded on Dresden
models, and the wreaths of laurels that formed an essential part of the
design afforded a good field for the display of the green colour in
which Champion excelled.
But Champion’s troubles were now to begin. In 1775 his petition to
Parliament for a renewal of his patent was vigorously opposed by
Wedgwood. Champion must have been put to great expense--he exhibited
before a committee of the House some selected specimens of his
porcelain. He, however, won his case, though the monopoly in the
employment of the Cornish clays was restricted to their use as a
material for _transparent_ wares, a point of some importance to the
Staffordshire potter. But meantime the American War was ruining his
business--for Champion was in the first place a merchant trading with
the West Indies and America--and it is probable that little porcelain
was made by him after 1777. The next year Wedgwood, his inveterate
opponent, in a letter to Bentley, says of him, ‘Poor Champion, you may
have heard, is quite demolished.... I suppose we might buy some
Growan-stone and Growan-clay now upon easy terms.’ In 1781, after a long
negotiation, he disposed of his patent to some Staffordshire potters,
and shortly after this he emigrated to America. Champion was only
forty-eight years old when, in 1791, he died at his new home in South
Carolina.
As Professor Church has pointed out, the paste of the Bristol porcelain
is of exceptional hardness. It is, in fact, in some specimens as hard as
quartz, that is, say, the hardness is equal to 7 in the scale of the
mineralogist: the hardness of Oriental porcelain, it will be remembered,
varies between 6 and 6·5; the glaze on the Bristol china is about 6 on
the same scale. The fractured surface may be described as subconchoidal
and somewhat flaky, with a greasy to vitreous lustre. On the Plymouth
and Bristol wares, especially on the larger vases, may often be seen,
when viewed in a favourable light, certain spiral ridges, the result of
the unequal pressure of the ‘thrower’s’ hand. Similar ridges may indeed
be observed at times on other hard paste wares, both Chinese and
European, and this ‘wreathing’ or _vissage_, as Brongniart long ago
pointed out, is the result of the _too great plasticity_ of the clay,--a
clay may, in fact, be too ‘fat’ to work well on the wheel. This
plasticity, however, would be of advantage to the modeller, especially
when working on a very small scale; indeed the delicate floral reliefs
in biscuit, on the plaques we have already spoken of, could only have
been made from a fine and unctuous clay. How refractory to heat this
same paste is, was well proved by the fire at the Alexandra Palace in
1873, when so many fine specimens of English porcelain were destroyed. A
biscuit plaque or medallion of Bristol porcelain passed uninjured (by
heat at least) through this fire, while the soft porcelain alongside of
it was completely melted.
The paste, then, of this Bristol ware is remarkable both for its
resistance to heat and for its great plasticity. These are both
qualities that point to an excess of kaolin in its composition, and this
excess is confirmed by analysis. Professor Church found in a specimen of
Bristol china 63 per cent. of silica, 33 per cent. of alumina, and only
4 per cent. of lime and alkalis. The percentage of alumina is about the
same as that in the hard pastes of Meissen and of Sèvres, but the small
amount of the other bases is quite exceptional. A paste of this
composition would contain about 65 per cent. of kaolin.
And here, before ending, we may for a moment return to what is, perhaps,
the crucial point of all in the composition of true porcelain--for it is
one that has a radical influence both on the technical and on the
artistic side. The first question we must ask when inquiring into the
composition of any specimen of porcelain is this--What proportion of
kaolin enters into its composition? Or if it is a matter of the primary
constituents of the paste--What is the percentage of alumina that it
contains? Now we may consider the composition of kaolin, after removing
the water, to be silica 54 per cent. and alumina 46 per cent., and the
nearer the composition of our porcelain approaches to these figures, the
greater will be its hardness, its resistance to fire, and the greater
also the plasticity of the paste--the greater in fact will be what we
have called the ‘severity’ of the type.[255]
Now for the other component of porcelain, the petuntse or china-stone.
The composition of this material differs widely, but let us take the
mean of some analyses of Cornish stone. On this basis we may take silica
72 per cent., alumina 18 per cent., other bases 10 per cent., as our
type. The result of adding such a material to our kaolin will be to
increase the percentage of silica and of the ‘other bases,’ and to
diminish the percentage of alumina in the resultant mixture. Our paste
now becomes less plastic and the resultant porcelain more readily
softened by heat, but at the same time less hard.
So far every one would be agreed. But the question now arises, are we to
attribute this increased fusibility to the higher percentage of the
other bases (these are, in the case of European porcelain, practically
lime and potash), or in a measure at least to the increased amount of
silica in the paste? We have here three variants, the silica, the
alumina, and the ‘other bases,’ and the case is therefore somewhat
complicated. I think, however, that the careful examination of any table
giving the composition of various types of porcelain would show that up
to a certain point an increase in the amount of silica promotes a lower
softening-point in the paste, and this in cases where there is no
important change in the proportion of the ‘other bases.’ I will
illustrate this by comparing the composition of the severe hard paste of
Sèvres on the one hand with an analysis of a mild type of Chinese
porcelain on the other:--
Sèvres hard paste (1843). Chinese porcelain.
Silica, 58 per cent. 70·5 per cent.
Alumina, 34·5 ” 21 ”
Other bases, 7·5 ” 7·5 ”
No doubt, if the percentage of silica is further increased, say beyond
78 or 80 per cent., we get again a practically infusible body. But with
a paste of this composition the resultant ware is no longer
translucent--we pass from the region of porcelain to a true stoneware.
Thus we see that in composition a mild porcelain forms a middle term
between stoneware on the one hand, and a severe porcelain on the other.
In other words, stoneware cannot be regarded as an extreme type of a
refractory porcelain.