THE VICAR AND MOSES.
Blue and white (9-1/4 in. high).]
Of Josiah Wedgwood, the English Palissy, we deal in a separate “Chat.”
A whole volume could be written about him and his work. His busts,
magnificently produced in black basalt, his cameos and gems, with
which the name of Flaxman must be coupled, his white terra-cotta, and
his cream-coloured earthenware, known as Queen’s ware (first made for
Queen Charlotte), may be ranked among the most important factors in the
history and development of the potter’s art in England.
Of the most important of the other Staffordshire potters, perhaps
the name of Spode is the best known. After 1798, Spode the younger
commenced to make porcelain.
Concerning Liverpool, to which we devote a separate “Chat,” it seems
remarkable to read that in 1754 the making of pottery was the staple
manufacture of the city. “The blue and white earthenware almost vie
with china,” so says an eighteenth-century journal.
John Sadler conceived the idea of transferring prints from copper on to
pottery, and struck out a new line in printing on earthenware.
Another factory, called the “Herculaneum Pottery,” was started on the
Mersey side by Messrs. Abbey and Graham in 1794. The making of china
was started here in 1800.
About the end of the eighteenth century, a potter named Absolon had
works at a place called “The Ovens” at Yarmouth. The work consisted of
decorating the articles which were manufactured elsewhere, and very
little more is known about it.
At Swansea both pottery and porcelain were made. In 1750 works were
established, and in 1790 “Cambrian Pottery” became quite well known.
In the early part of the next century a superior kind of ware, called
“Opaque China,” was made.
Leeds pottery is well known. At one time it had quite an extensive
Continental trade, and the pattern-book of the pottery was issued in
several languages. Alas! now it is the French and the German and the
Japanese pottery books that are issued in several languages.
It is largely cream-coloured ware and such articles as candlesticks,
teapots, mustard-pots, cruet-stands, tea-canisters, and sugar-basins,
with covers, together with the usual dinner and tea services, that were
manufactured.
Bristol claims to have made pottery at a period as remote as Edward I.
Wherever excavations have been made in the city, along the north bank
of the river from Bristol Bridge to Redcliffe Pit, remains of pottery
and shard heaps have been discovered.
Joseph Ring, in 1787, successfully imitated the Queen’s ware of
Wedgwood and the best Staffordshire pottery. Ring’s cream-ware is thin
and well made, the edges being remarkably sharp, and the fluted pieces
very regular and well defined. It is generally yellower than either
Wedgwood’s cream-ware or the Leeds pottery. Both of these have coloured
bodies, but Ring’s Bristol ware has a white body, the yellow surface
tint being obtained by means of a glaze.
The mugs and jugs of Newcastle and Sunderland are much sought after on
account of their quaint inscriptions.
By kind permission, we reproduce some fine specimens of this ware from
the collection of Mr. W. G. Honey, of Cork, which were on view at the
Cork Exhibition. Many of these jugs have a frog in the interior of the
vessel. As the liquor is drunk the creature appears to be leaping into
the drinker’s mouth.
The mug in commemoration of the cast-iron bridge across the Wear bears
the date 1793. We give three positions of the mug, and in the inverted
one the frog can be plainly seen. On the reverse side are the following
lines:—
THE SAILOR’S TEAR.
“He leap’d into the boat
As it lay upon the strand,
But, oh, his heart was far away
With friends upon the land.
He thought of those he lov’d the best
A wife and infant dear:
And feeling fill’d the sailor’s breast
The sailor’s eye—a tear.”
Nottingham, too, has produced some excellent earthenware. Wrotham, in
Kent, had an old-established factory. A dish in the British Museum is
dated “Wrotham, 1699.”
[Illustration: SUNDERLAND FROG MUG.
(Two positions.)
_From Collection of Mr. W. G. Honey._]
[Illustration:
_W. G. Honey._] [_Cork._
SUNDERLAND FROG MUG.
(Showing interior.)]
London and its environs has given birth to several celebrated
potteries. Fulham pottery has a worthy history. Letters patent were
granted in 1671 to John Dwight, for the “misterie of transparent
earthenware, commonly knowne by the names of porcelain or China and
Persian ware, as alsoe the misterie of the stone ware, vulgarly called
Cologne ware.” There was, too, a pottery at Mortlake. “Kishere,
Mortlake,” is the mark generally used. Isleworth had a small factory at
Railshead Creek, Isleworth. Much of the coarse pottery made here was
known as “Welsh ware.”
Lambeth pottery is well known, the art productions of Messrs. Doulton
having done much to popularise their ware. In the middle of the
seventeenth century certain Dutch potters settled at Lambeth, and
made pottery tiles. Lambeth delft ware had quite a reputation in the
eighteenth century.
Some particularly quaint devices appear on the old English jugs and
mugs during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. They were used
by the common people who could not afford silver and for whom glass
was too expensive a luxury. They succeeded the old leathern jacks and
leathern bottles, and played no inconspicuous part in social gatherings
both at home and in alehouses. Many of the mugs have two (and sometimes
as many as four) handles, which were made to supply the needs of
several drinkers.
These English mugs possess little artistic merit, but they come as a
very interesting link in the history of the manufacture of pottery
in this country. One would have thought that the conquering Roman
who settled in various colonies in our islands would have left some
permanent mark on our pottery; that the Norman, who possessed some
artistic skill, or peradventure the Spaniard who settled in the West in
Armada days, would have taught the Anglo-Saxon a lesson in pottery;
but it appears that the principles of art fell upon very stony ground
in these islands.
[Illustration: OLD ENGLISH DELFT MUG.
(Dated 1631.)
_At Victoria and Albert Museum._]
In the national collection in the Bethnal Green Museum is a
barrel-shaped mug (5-1/2 inches high), which we reproduce; it is
painted in blue with birds and flowers, and inscribed “William and
Elizabeth Burges, 24th August, 1631.” This delft mug is believed to be
of Lambeth manufacture.
A mug of elegant shape was quite recently dug up in some excavation
near Bishopsgate Street, London, for the Great Eastern Railway
extension. It bore the inscription—
“The gift is small,
Good will is all,”
and was dated 1650, which conjures up pictures of crop-eared ’prentice
lads and mercers of busy Chepe, and junketings at the fair by London
Bridge in days when train-bands and Ironsides were as integral a part
of City history as were the C.I.V.’s of a year or so ago.
Brown and chocolate-coloured body with yellow dotted decorations is a
very common form of this old English ware. A Posset Mug, dated 1697,
bears the inscription: “The best is not too good for you”—evidently
a present of some sort, although much of this class of ware was in
common use in taverns, as the inscriptions go to show. We reproduce
this dated Posset Mug in the accompanying illustration; next to it, on
the lowest shelf, is an old Fuddling Cup. On the top shelf is a Cradle
with incised decoration. The other cradle has slip decoration by Joseph
Glass, 1703; while beside it is an old Posset Pot inscribed “God bless
Queen Ann.” These specimens are reproduced by the kindness of Mr. S. G.
Fenton, of Cranbourne Street, W.
Puzzle jugs were known in the time of Henry VIII. There is a puzzle
jug at the Bethnal Green Museum, which was made by Mr. John Wedgwood,
great-uncle to Joshua Wedgwood, and is dated 1691. The principle of
the puzzle is that there are three spouts, each projecting from a tube
which runs round the rim and down the handle to the bottom of the
vessel. The top of the neck being perforated, it seems impossible to
obtain any of the liquor without spilling it. The secret is to stop two
of the spouts with the fingers while drinking at the third.
Other forms are the Tyg, a tall cup, with two or more handles, and
decorated either with names or initials; and the Piggin, a small
shallow vessel some few inches high, provided with a long handle, and
used for ladling out the liquor brewed in the tyg. The doubled-handled
tygs are generally called “parting-cups,” while those with more than
two handles pass under the name of “loving-cups.” The word tyg comes
from the Anglo-Saxon “tigel,” or tile, and survives in the word
“tilewright” and other corruptions common in Staffordshire.
Some of the puzzle jugs bear interesting doggerel lines upon them. One
runs—
“What though I’m common and well known
To almost every one in town?
My purse to sixpence if you will
That if you drink you some do spill.”
Not a very good recommendation for a jug, but a very profitable
alehouse amusement from mine host’s point of view.
Another bears the lines—
“In this jug there is good liquor,
Fit for either priest or vicar;
But to drink and not to spill
Will try the utmost of your skill.”
[Illustration:
_By courtesy of Mr. S. G. Fenton, Cranbourne Street._
GROUP OF OLD ENGLISH DATED WARE.]
There is a very quaint inscription on a four-handled goblet, possibly
a christening cup. It is dated 1692, and has the sides decorated with
rough devices. Attached to one of the sides is a whistle; the mug
has written upon it in atrocious spelling—
“Here is the geste of the barley corne;
Glad ham I the child is born.”
The orthography of potters in the age before School Boards is something
to marvel at. Apparently the following is the gift of an amorous
potter to his lady-love. I. W. has gone the way of all lovers, but the
little mug he made for his sweetheart lies on the museum shelf, an
object-lesson to all “golden lads and lasses” who, as Herrick’s fair
daffodils, “haste away so soon.”
“Ann Draper, this cup I made for you, and so no more.—I. W.”
Dated 1707, in the days of the great Marlborough.
Some mugs have the precept, “Obeay the King,” while others bear the
superscription, “Come let us drink to the pious memory of Good Queen
Anne.” One or two utter the toast, “God Save King George.” A Gossip’s
Bowl, dated 1726, has the couplet—
“I drink to you with all my hart,
Mery met and mery part.”
Another old mug, doubtless sent as a present, has the words—
“As a ring is round
And hath no end,
So is my love
Unto my friend.”
There is one quaint piece of advice given to all lovers who wish for
success in their love affairs. It is on a level with the Shakesperian
methods adopted in the conquest of Kate in the “Taming of the Shrew”—
“Brisk be to the maide you desire,
As her love you may require.”
[Illustration: OLD PUZZLE JUG.
(Dated 1691.)
_Victoria and Albert Museum._]
Some of the pronunciation is as curious as the spelling. We know Pope
makes “tea” rhyme with “day,” as does the modern Irishman; but in the
following lines “join” is evidently pronounced “jine”—
“Come, brother, shall we join?
Give me your two pence—here is mine”
—an invitation issued to the frequenters of some inn where the brown
jug bearing the inscription had an abiding place.
Another mug essays to point a moral while the toper is draining its
contents. The potter who would strew his moral lessons in stoneware
had about as much sense of the ludicrous as the gentleman who used to
mark the London pavements with the text “Watch and Pray,” which he had
printed in reverse on the soles of indiarubber shoes he would wear. On
the bottom of a drinking mug the notion is quaint enough—
“When this you see,
Remember me—
Obeay God’s Word.”
For our part, we prefer the following, which has a truer ring about it—
“Drink faire,
Don’t sware.”
A large bowl of Bristol delft bears on it “Success to the British Arms.”
A fine breezy inscription, dated 1724, smacks of the hunting field. One
can hear the rollicking voices of the eighteenth-century squires such
as Randolph Caldecott loved to depict. Only two lines, but they ring in
one’s ears as a message from the good old times—
“On Bansted Down a hare was found,
Which led us all a-smoaking round.”
Not classical English, perhaps, any more than that of the ladies from
town who declare in the family circle of the Vicar of Wakefield that
they are in a “muck-sweat.”
A set of six plates bear a line of the following inscription on each—
“What is a merry man?
Let him do what he can
To entertain his guests
With wine and merry jests;
But if his wife does frown
All merriment goes doune.”
There is an exceedingly interesting Fulham ware flip mug, which bears
an inscription on it showing that it once belonged to Alexander
Selkirk, from whose adventures Defoe built up his story of “Robinson
Crusoe.” Doubtless this mug accompanied the Scots sailor to the lonely
island of Juan Fernandez when he set sail with the Cinque Ports galley—
“Alexander Selkirke. This is my one.
When you take me on board of ship,
Pray fill me full with punch or flipp.—1703,”
which suggests that it may have been a parting present from one of his
friends.
Jugs and mugs with portraits of Nelson are not uncommon. A quart jug
in white ware with crimson border has a man-of-war in full sail on
one side, and on the other a copy of West’s picture of the “Death of
General Wolfe,” probably made by Thomas Wolfe, of Stoke-on-Trent, who
was related to the general. On one mug is a view of the Thames Tunnel
and a portrait of the engineer Brunel, to commemorate the opening
in 1843. We give as a headpiece a Sunderland jug from Mr. Honey’s
collection, having floral decorations in purple lustre, and having on
one side a picture of the “_Columbus_, the largest ship ever built.”
On the reverse side are two jolly tars, and the inscription runs—
“Thus sailing at peril at sea or on shore,
We box the old compass right cheerly;
Toss the grog boys about, and a song or two more
Then we’ll drink to the girls we love dearly.”
Mugs seem to have in former days been manufactured to celebrate some
political event or great victory. There were the coronation mugs of the
present Czar of Russia, at the distribution of which so many peasants
lost their lives. The Transvaal War produced no china mementoes.
Mafeking buttons and ticklers are more representative of modern feeling.
To us these old English mugs are as the dry bones which, if one is
only skilful enough magician, resolve themselves into dream-pictures,
historically accurate enough, of our forbears of the eighteenth
century. Our children’s children, when they come to examine our
everyday ware, will find little else to observe save the legend “Made
in Germany.”
The field of English earthenware is very large and very diverse. We
have been prohibited by space from saying anything of salt-glaze ware,
of Elers, or of Astbury, and we regretfully have to pass on without
touching Leeds ware. But we give an interesting illustration of a group
of Mason’s jugs of the celebrated “Patent Ironstone China.” The largest
of these jugs is 9-1/2 in. high. This is not a complete set, as the
writer knows of the existence of a jug of smaller size, and another
size between the second and third largest, which make a set of eight.
[Illustration:
[Earliest mark 1780].
[Later Marks].
[Stamped in blue—1813].
MARKS ON MASON’S WARE.]
We give, too, a set of marks used by the firm of Mason, from the early
days till the factory ceased. In the advertisement mentioned below he
says, “The articles are stamped on the bottom of the large pieces to
prevent imposition.”
Miles Mason established his pottery at Lane Delph, in Staffordshire,
about 1780. “Miles Mason, late of Fenchurch St., London,” so runs his
advertisement in the _Morning Herald_, October 1, 1804, “having been
a principal purchaser of Indian porcelain, till the prohibition of
that article by heavy duties, has established a manufactory at Lane
Delph, near Newcastle-under-Lyme.” The “Ironstone China” was patented
by Charles James Mason in 1813. It consisted in using the slag of
ironstone pounded with water together with flint, Cornwall stone, and
clay, and blue oxide of cobalt. The ware is usually outlined with
flowers in transfer printing, and painted and gilded by hand. Some of
Mason’s blue plates are in colour equal to old blue Delft. On account
of its handsome decorative effect it is rapidly rising in value.
[Illustration: GROUP OF MASON’S JUGS.
(Largest 9-1/2 in. high.)
_In Collection of Mr. W. G. Honey._]
SALE PRICES.
STAFFORDSHIRE. £ s. d.
Jug, Bacchanalian, 13 in. high, figures
in bold relief of “Bacchus” and
“Pan” supported by a barrel with
grotesque animal handle and dolphin
spout, in rare colours and highly
glazed by Voyez, Cobridge, 1788.
Edwards, Son & Bigwood, Birmingham,
May 13, 1902 15 0 0
Vase, Etruscan, 18 in. high, snake-and-mask
handles, marked S. A. & Co.
(Alcock & Co). Edwards, Son &
Bigwood, Birmingham, May 13, 1902 10 0 0
MASON’S WARE.
Vase 27 in., decorated with flowers and
gilt, and ornamented with gilded
head handles supporting a cornucopia
and mermaid. Gudgeon &
Sons, Winchester, April 3, 1902 8 5 0
FOOTNOTES:
[2] “Chats on English Earthenware,” the companion volume to this, deals
in detail with the subject of earthenware as outlined here.
XII
LUSTRE
WARE
[Illustration: SILVER LUSTRE JUG.
_In the Collection of Mr. W. G. Honey._]
[Illustration:
_W. G. Honey._] [_Cork._
COPPER LUSTRE JUGS.
(4-3/4 in., 6-3/4 in., 7-1/4 in. high.)]
XII
LUSTRE WARE
The old Spanish golden red and canary coloured lustrous dishes with
Moorish ornamentation, and the wonderful Italian majolica, with its
copper and purple and amber surfaces glowing like beaten metal, are
probably the early masters from which our English potters took the idea
which they adapted to the decoration of their pottery.
In this chapter we shall treat solely of English lustre ware. It is
roughly divided into three classes—copper, silver, and gold.
The copper or brown lustre was made at Brislington, near Bristol, as
early as 1770. Compared with the Spanish lustre dishes, it is more
rudely ornamented and poor and inartistic in form compared with their
Arabic designs. Our English copper lustre, or “gilty” ware, as it is
called in some parts of the country and in Ireland, may be sub-divided
into two classes. The plain copper lustre, in which the jug, or dish,
or teapot is entirely covered with the copper lustre; and secondly, the
partially lustrous ware, in which some portions of the pottery are in
relief and are coloured with some bright pigments, or left white.
[Illustration: GROUP OF COPPER LUSTRE WARE.]
[Illustration: COPPER LUSTRE BUST.
(15-1/2 in. high.)
_From the Collection of Mr. W. G. Honey._]
In the group of lustre ware, which we reproduce, with the exception of
the centre dish, all the pieces are copper lustre. The three fine jugs
are decorated with turquoise blue, as are also the two cream jugs.
This blue, though it comes out white in our illustration, is of a deep
turquoise. On the top shelf, the jug to the right is decorated with red
as well as blue. It will be observed that the spouts of the jugs are in
the form of a man’s head with long beard, and the handle is the figure
of a man’s body. The scenes depicted on them are typically English in
treatment. A castle in background and a shepherd with his flock in
foreground. The small lustre cup has simply a rough-surfaced band of
white running round it. The whole form a representative group of this
class of ware.
[Illustration:
_W. G. Honey._] [_Cork._
COPPER LUSTRE JUGS.
(4-1/4 in., 6-1/2 in., 7-1/2 in. high.)]
The best period in the copper lustre is in the first years of the
nineteenth century, before the introduction of colours in conjunction
with the coppered surface. It may be observed in passing that the art
of producing copper lustre has continued in a spasmodic manner down to
the present day, the latter specimens being of a rougher exterior and
of a coarser finish.
[Illustration: COPPER LUSTRE JUG.
(8-3/4 in. high.)
_From the Collection of Mr. W. G. Honey._]
By the kindness of Mr. W. G. Honey we are enabled to reproduce some
fine examples of lustre ware from his collection on view last year at
the Cork Exhibition. The copper lustre bust, 15-1/2 in. high, is a
perfect example of lustre ware at its highest level. This specimen has
no equal in any of the public collections. Two other illustrations, one
of which appears as a headpiece, giving half a dozen forms of copper
lustre jugs, are from the same collection. While the copper lustre jug,
8-3/4 in. high, is a beautiful specimen of fine modelling.
[Illustration:
_W. G. Honey._] [_Cork._
SILVER LUSTRE SUGAR-BOWL.
(3 in. high.)]
With regard to silver and gold lustre, that in all probability became
extinct for a little time, but in recent years the great demand for
silver lustre has produced a corresponding supply, manufactured abroad
for the English collector, but it is very inferior and easily detected
from the early examples by its coarse and dull surface and slovenly
finish.
The places where lustre ware is known to have been manufactured are at
Brislington, by R. Frank, about 1770; at Etruria, by Wedgwood, in 1780;
and by Wilson, in Staffordshire, in 1785; also by Moore & Co. and Dixon
& Co., at Sunderland, about 1820.
Swansea, at the Dillwyn pottery (of which we spoke in our “Chat” on
Swansea), also, about 1800, is known to have produced lustre ware.
[Illustration:
_W. G. Honey._] [_Cork._
SILVER LUSTRE JUGS.]
Different processes were employed in producing the lustre, but they
all consist in reducing the metal from a state of combination, by
dissolving it in some chemical, and depositing it in a particularly
thin layer on the surface of the pottery, so that it exhibits its
characteristic lustre without burnishing. As may readily be supposed,
the amount of platinum used for the silver ware, and gold for the
purple or gold lustre, is extremely small.
[Illustration: SILVER LUSTRE TEAPOT.]
Of the silver or platinum lustre very many fine examples exist, and
it is extremely popular owing to its similitude to old English silver
or plate. The sugar bowl we reproduce, with beaded pattern and fluted
design, is quite in the style of the Sheffield plate of the Georgian
period. Of the three silver lustre cream jugs, that in the extreme
right is of the same design, while the other two show at a glance the
beauty of form that silver lustre in its best period reached.
Other varieties of this silver lustre are quite plain, as in the teapot
we reproduce (p. 229), which is an example of a slightly later period.
This is a fine specimen of the unornamented variety of silver lustre
which is undistinguishable from silver. In fact the highly burnished
surface of such a teapot as this cannot be obtained on silver, the
lustre is of a richer and deeper quality. Alas! it possesses the
dangerous property of dissolving, like a fairy gift, into nothingness.
Elfin gold will turn into a circle of whirring, dancing, mocking
leaves, and if your wondrous lustre teapot slips to the ground, it lies
a heap of brown earthenware fragments.
One word in passing to collectors of this ware. Do not wash your
specimens any more than you can help, as warm water has a deleterious
effect on the lustre, and tends to make it less brilliant; we recommend
our readers to polish their lustre ware with a soft cloth, and we wish
them absolute and entire freedom from all mishaps. Treat the ware
lovingly and kindly, it will never come again; the potters who made it
are dead, the modern imitator is but a poor imitator, fraudulent at
heart and feeble in result; if cunning lie in his heart it is not in
his finger-tips, for, of a truth, his hand has lost its cunning.
Besides the plain silver lustre, there is a decorated variety which is
very handsome, and much sought after. Sometimes the ground is of silver
lustre decorated in white, and sometimes the ground is white with an
elaborate pattern of foliage, of fruit, or of birds, woven in silver
thread. The rarest of this variety is the silver pattern on a canary
ground.
[Illustration: SILVER LUSTRE JUG (5 IN. HIGH).