was similarly honored by a mammoth presentation pitcher, which is owned
by Mrs. Russel, of Cambridge. It bears a print of the Columbia, on which
ship Mr. Yendell sailed on the famous voyage when the Columbia River was
discovered, in 1791. That does not seem very long ago! Mr. Yendell lived
till 1867. To be sure, he was then the oldest man in Boston,
ninety-seven years of age.
The art of transfer-printing on pottery and porcelain, by which all
these pieces are decorated, has completely revolutionized the business
of china decoration in England, and cheapened the price of decorated
crockery, as did the invention of types and printing cheapen and
multiply books. John Sadler, who invented the process of
transfer-printing, was originally an engraver. He had his attention
first called to the possibility and desirability of china-printing by a
very trifling incident—by seeing some children when playing “doll’s
house” paste on broken pieces of crockery, pictures cut from waste-paper
prints which he had thrown away.
For years he and his partner, Guy Green, managed to keep his invention
enough of a secret, so that he printed not only for Liverpool works, but
for many others. Much of the Wedgwood Queens-ware was stamped by him,
being made at the Wedgwood factory, carried in wagons over bad roads to
Liverpool, and, after being printed, returned in the same manner to
Burslem to be fired. In spite of all this manipulation and
transportation it could be sold cheaply, for Sadler’s tariff of prices
for transfer-printing was very low. “For printing a table and
tea-service of two hundred and fifty pieces for David Garrick, £8 6s.
1½d. Twenty-five dozen half-tiles printing and colouring, £1 5s.” These
printed half-tiles were sold for 2s. 6d. a dozen, while the black
printed whole tiles brought only 5s. a dozen.
Sadler’s process was very simple. He printed on paper with an ordinary
copper or steel plate, then laid the print while wet on the glazed piece
of pottery. Then, upon pressing it, the ink was transferred to the
pottery piece, and afterward burnt in. Nearly all these wares were
printed in black, but some have the prints in blue, and some in
vermilion. Others, printed in black outlines, are filled in by hand with
various colors, sometimes with very good effect.
Hancock and Holdship followed quickly in Sadler’s wake, in printing on
pottery and porcelain in Worcester, and there bat-printing was
introduced at a later date. In this process linseed-oil was used instead
of ink, and the oil design was printed on a “bat,” or sheet of prepared
glue and treacle, which, being pliable, adapted itself readily to the
shape of the pottery article to be printed, and transferred to it the
oil lines of the design. Powdered color was dusted on these oil lines,
the superfluous color being removed by cotton wool, and then fired in.
Engravings for bat-printing were usually in stipple work, and the prints
can readily be recognized and distinguished from those of
transfer-printing.
It is interesting to us to know that an American who seemed to have a
hand in every invention of his day, had also his little share in the
suggestion, if not in the discovery, of printing upon pottery and
porcelain. Benjamin Franklin wrote thus from London, November 3, 1773,
to some unknown person:
“I was much pleased with the specimens you so kindly sent me of your new
art of engraving. That on the china is admirable. No one would suppose
it anything but painting. I hope you meet with all the encouragement you
merit, and that the invention will be what inventions seldom are,
profitable to the inventor. Now, we are speaking of inventions, I know
not who pretends to that of copper-plate engraving for earthen ware, and
I am not disposed to contest the honor with anybody, as the improvement
in taking impressions not directly from the plate, but from printed
paper, applicable by that means to other than flat forms, is far beyond
my first idea. But I have reason to apprehend that I might have given
the hint on which that improvement was made; for, more than twenty years
since, I wrote to Dr. Mitchell from America proposing to him the
printing of square tiles for ornamenting chimneys, from copper-plates,
describing the manner in which I thought it might be done, and advising
the borrowing from the booksellers the plates that had been used in a
thin folio called ‘Moral Virtue Delineated,’ for that purpose. The Dutch
Delft-ware tiles were much used in America, which are only or chiefly
Scripture histories wretchedly scrawled. I wished to have those moral
prints, which were originally taken from Horace’s poetical figures,
introduced in tiles, which, being about our chimneys are constantly in
the eyes of the children when by the fireside, might give parents an
opportunity in explaining them to express moral sentiments, and I gave
expectations of great demands for them if executed. Dr. Mitchell wrote
me in answer that he had communicated my scheme to several of the
artists in the earthen way about London, who rejected it as
impracticable; and it was not till some years after that I first saw an
enamelled snuff-box, which I was sure was from a copper-plate, though
the curvature of the form made me wonder how the impression was taken.”
Sadly and deprecatingly must “Poor Richard” have examined the printed
tiles of John Sadler, for no “moral virtues delineated” thereon are
depicted. He found, instead, the representation of such trivial and
unmoral pastimes as dancing, beer-drinking, pipe-smoking,
fortune-telling—the latter design being of an astrologer seated at a
table telling the fortunes of two young women. One fair maid smiles with
delighted anticipation as she receives a paper of prophecy inscribed “A
brisk husband and son,” while the other poor creature is departing,
shedding bitter tears of disappointment, with a similar paper bearing
the depressing words, “Never to be married.” American children doubtless
lost much desirable and laudable parental instruction when Franklin’s
worthy scheme failed in execution, but they were also spared many a
fireside lecture and nagging. How they would have come to hate the sight
of those moral lesson tiles!
And while I am speaking of transfer-printing, let me call attention to
some pretty little ceramic relics of a quaint old-time fashion, that are
sometimes overlooked by collectors—“mirror-knobs”—“Lookeing Glasse Nobs”
I find them called in ante-Revolutionary advertisements. These knobs
consisted usually of a painted or printed medallion, frequently
enamelled on the metal, or on little oval porcelain placques or discs,
which were then fastened in brass, gilt or silvered frames, and mounted
on a long and strong screw or spike. Two of these knobs were screwed
into the wall about a foot apart, so that the oval-framed medallions
stood out two or three inches from the wall. The lower edge of a mirror
or picture frame was allowed to rest on the iron screws behind these two
ornamental heads. These mirror-knobs were also used to fasten back
window curtains. The head of the mirror-knob was usually decorated by
the process of transfer-printing; sentimental views of shepherds and
shepherdesses, mincing heads of powdered French dames, and
unintentionally funny likenesses of many of our Revolutionary heroes and
statesmen. The portrait of Washington which was employed was fairly
good; of Franklin in the fur-cap, quite well drawn; but the others that
I have seen vied with one another in comical ugliness, save that of John
Jay, always too fine in feature to be caricatured. In the Huntington
collection in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in New York, may be seen a
few of these mirror-knobs with portraits of Franklin, John Jay, C.
Thompson, W. H. Drayton, John Dickinson, S. Huntington, Major-General
Gaines, and an exceptionally ugly one of H. Laurens, with a phenomenally
attenuated neck, a mere bone of a neck. Often these little printed
miniatures are in black and white, but more frequently they are printed
in outline, and faintly and delicately colored. I wish I knew where they
were made, and who ordered them and imported and sold them, and who drew
them. I think that they were made in Worcester, not in Liverpool. Aged
country people tantalizingly tell me of mirror-knobs made of discs with
white raised heads and figures on blue grounds—Wedgwood medallions, were
they not? But they have all vanished from my ken, even the printed knobs
are now seldom seen. I know one drawer of an old dressing-case in quiet
Hadley town that holds fifteen beautiful mirror-knobs, all whole,
uncracked, unscratched; but you will never see them nor buy them. You
might steal them, perhaps, if you only knew which elm-shaded house
contained them—you might steal the whole dressing-case, indeed, if you
were only quiet about it, and you might walk the entire mile and a half
of the beautiful main street with the stolen furniture on your back and
meet not a soul to question or wonder.
Of the same class and decoration and of the same materials were many
dainty snuff-boxes and patch-boxes that were made and used in England
and imported to America. The latter pretty trinkets were tiny oval or
round boxes about an inch and a half or two inches in diameter,
frequently made of fine Battersea enamel, or of china medallions set in
silver or gilt frames. Within the lid was always found a little mirror,
usually of polished steel, in which the fair owner might peep to freshly
set or rearrange her coquettish patches. One patch-box I have bears this
motto on the top:
“Have Communion with few,
Be familiar with one,
Deal Justly with all,
Speak evil of None.”
Another has a more frivolous verse:
“Within this Beauty views her face
And with the patch gives added grace.”
Still another:
“Love and Beauty conquer all,
Love to Beauty.”
Sometimes, as with the mirror-knobs, a little painting of shepherds and
shepherdesses is set in the lid, and, with the jewelled and enamelled
border, form a trifle dainty enough to rival any modern bonbonnières.
These patch-boxes and “Gum Patches,” or “Patches for ladies,” or “Face
Patches,” were advertised freely in American newspapers for many years
previous to the Revolution—as early, surely, as 1750 in the _Boston
Evening Post_; and patches were universally worn by American beauties,
as Whitefield and other pious travellers sadly deplored. “China Snuff
Boxes” were offered for sale in the _Boston Evening Post_ of April 16,
1773, were bought and filled with Kippen’s snuff, were lost on Boston
streets, were advertised for reward in Boston papers, and no doubt
proudly and ostentatiously carried by Boston beaux, as well as by
Charleston macaronis. A few snuff-boxes of Battersea enamel still remain
to show us how lovely they were, but the frail china ones have nearly
all been destroyed, and when still existing are usually sadly cracked
and disfigured. China and Battersea enamel “tooth-pick cases” were also
imported and carried by Boston beaux.
But we must leave these dainty quaint trinkets and go back to the far
less beautiful Liverpool pitchers. Though they have no great charm of
color, shape, or design, and are, in fact, the least graceful and
beautiful of all the old English wares commonly found in America, all
the historical pitchers must certainly be of great interest to students
of American history, as records and relics of the early days of the
United States. As new pieces bearing hitherto unknown designs are
constantly being found, they will form, in fact do now form, with the
old blue Staffordshire plates, a valuable and lasting ceramic record of
the early days of our nation. Let us hope that they will be carefully
preserved by all who are fortunate enough to own them; and, if they are
not placed in the safe keeping of museums or cabinet collections, at
least be kept from the debasing uses and positions in which I have seen
them in country homes. My patriotic heart has thrilled with wounded
indignation to see mugs and pitchers bearing such honored and venerated
names and faces, battered, nicked, and handleless, despitefully used to
hold herb-teas, soft-soap, horse-liniment, or tooth-brushes. I saw one
Washington pitcher, noseless and fairly crenated with nicks, shamefully
degraded to use as a jug to carry to the hen-house the hot water with
which to prepare the chicken-food; while another contained a
villainous-looking purple-black liquid compound which the owner
explained was “Pa’s hair-restorer.” In spite of careless use, however,
many specimens still exist, for “antique” dealers find them for their
shops. In one Newport bric-a-brac shop I saw, in the summer of 1891, at
least fifteen Liverpool pitchers varying in price from five dollars for
a small Sailor pitcher to thirty-five dollars for a fine perfect
Apotheosis Pitcher.
Fortunate is the household, and happy and proud should be its members,
that possesses one of these historic relics. I know of no better way to
impress upon a child, or to recall to a grown person, the lesson of
bravery, courage, and love of country, than by showing him the
likenesses of Perry, Decatur, and Lawrence on mug or pitcher, and
telling to him their story, and reading or reciting the old ballads and
songs written about them. Nor do I know of any more noble example of
Christian piety than that of the brave Macdonough, whose name is so
often seen on these pieces of old English ware. Before the battle of
Lake Champlain, when the deck of the Saratoga was cleared for action, he
knelt upon the deck with his officers and men around him, asked Almighty
God for aid, and committed the issue of the contest into His hands. Let
us echo the toast which was given to him at a large dinner in
Plattsburg, shortly after his victory. “The pious and brave Macdonough,
the professor of the religion of the Redeemer—preparing for action, he
called on God, who forsook him not in the hour of danger. _May he not be
forgotten by his country._”
Let our respect and affection for our ancestors’ adored heroes save to
our descendants the Liverpool pitchers bearing such honored historical
names.
VIII.
ORIENTAL CHINA
In that delightful and much-quoted book, “The China Hunters’ Club,” the
final chapter is devoted to a most humorous description of the
disbandment and ignominious extinction of the club through a fierce
quarrel over a disputed piece of china—whether it were Chinese or
Lowestoft. Could I, as did Charlie Baker in that story, label both my
china of like character and this chapter “Canton-Lowestoft,” it would
fitly express my feelings when I attempt to judge and write upon the old
pieces of hard-paste porcelain, so common in America, called Oriental,
Canton, India, or Lowestoft, according to the belief or traditions of
each individual owner. I cannot give any positive rules by which to
classify this china, nor any by which to judge of independent specimens.
If I followed my own convictions and my own researches on this puzzling
subject, I should in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred firmly state the
disputed piece of porcelain to be Chinese, and I could quote in support
of my views such an authority as Franks, the great china collector, who
says that,
“India china (that is, china made for the East India Company for
European trade—what Jacquemart calls _porcelaine des Indes_) has on one
hand been attributed to Japan, and on the other, by a still more
singular hallucination been ascribed to Lowestoft.”
He also says, “There can be no doubt that there was a considerable
manufactory of porcelain at Lowestoft, but this was of the usual English
soft-paste. The evidence of hard-paste having been made there is of the
most slender kind.”
Mr. Owens, in his “Two Centuries of Ceramic Art in Bristol,” says, with
decision:
“There cannot be any doubt that hard porcelain, vitrified and
translucent, was never manufactured from the raw materials, native
kaolin and petunste, at any other locality in England than Plymouth and
Bristol. The tradition that such ware was made at Lowestoft in 1775
rests upon evidence too slight to be worthy of argument. The East India
Company imported into England large quantities of porcelain for sale;
and in the provincial journals of the last century advertisements of
sales by auction of East India china occur frequently. This particular
ware, which is very plentiful, even at the present day, and which has of
late acquired the reputation of having been made at Lowestoft, was
simply, in form and ornamentation, only a reproduction by the Chinese of
English earthenware models. The Chinese do not use saucers,
butter-boats, and numbers of other articles after the European fashion,
and the agents in China were compelled to furnish a model for every
piece of ware ordered. These models the Asiatic workmen have copied only
too faithfully. The ill-drawn roses, the coarsely painted baskets of
flowers, the rude borders of lines and dots are literally copied from
the inartistic painting on the English earthenware of by-gone days.”
He also says, “It is painful to see in public and private collections
examples of Oriental ware labelled Lowestoft, simply because, though
hard porcelain, they bear English armorial coats and initials. Many
porcelain punch-bowls are to be found in seaport towns with names and
portraits of ships and very early dates. Those bowls are often
attributed to the works at Liverpool and Lowestoft. The officers of the
East India Company’s ships were accustomed to take out English Delft
bowls and get them reproduced in common porcelain in China for their
merchant friends, and many a relic now prized as of home manufacture was
procured in this manner.”
Mr. Prime writes more cautiously, after describing the pieces:
“These are supposed to have been made on special patterns furnished to
the Oriental factories by the East India Company. They resemble European
work in the decoration, and many of the Lowestoft paintings seem to be
imitations of these. It is, therefore, necessary to be very cautious in
classifying wares as of Lowestoft fabric.”
And again he says, “The presence of a single decoration like a flower or
sprig of flowers in European style on porcelain is not a sufficient
reason for classing the porcelain as European. Many such pieces were
printed in Japan and in China. And others are possibly the work of
decorators in Holland.”
Mr. Elliott says of Lowestoft in America:
“It seems certain that this kind of decoration was done at Lowestoft; it
is equally certain that it was also done in China, from designs sent out
there. I have myself seen pieces so decorated which were imported direct
from China to New Haven about the end of the last century.”
On the other hand, that standard authority, Mr. Chaffers, author of
“Marks and Monograms,” says that “the question about hard-paste
porcelain having been made at Lowestoft is placed beyond dispute upon
the best authority. It was introduced about 1773,” and he offers a mass
of testimony to prove his statements.
Mr. Owens fancies that sailing-masters took out English Delft bowls to
be reproduced in China; Mr. Marryatt and Mr. Franks, that Chinese
porcelain was imported to Holland and painted in Delft; another
collector believes that Chinese kaolin and clay were brought to
Lowestoft, and there mixed, shaped, fired and painted; and still
another, that Lowestoft porcelain was taken out to China to be
decorated. The Catalogue of the Museum of Practical Geology in London
very shrewdly and non-responsibly says of its Lowestoft specimens: “It
should be understood that several of the following pieces are exhibited
as ‘Lowestoft china’ simply in deference to the opinions of certain
collectors and not as authenticated specimens.”
To show the doubtful eyes with which the Lowestoft aspirants are
regarded by authorities in England, I will state that in this
last-mentioned catalogue but twelve lots of Lowestoft porcelain and
pottery are named—a small proportion—and a sharp lesson to American
collectors with their reckless and sweeping Lowestoft classifications.
None of the twelve bear any distinguishing Lowestoft marks or names. The
descriptions of some of these are not at all like our American Lowestoft
wares. One reads: “Two plates ornamented with borders in brown and gold,
and with views of a Suffolk village and river painted in sepia in a
circular panel in centre of each plate.”
From these few extracts which I have taken from various authorities, it
is plainly seen that no decision, no judgment can be given in this
Lowestoft case, that each seeker after china and truth must judge for
himself.
The history of the production of hard-paste china at Lowestoft is
exceedingly curious as an example and proof of the suddenness with which
recent facts and circumstances may be forgotten. It seems fairly
incredible that the true particulars of the manufacture of this ware
(which it is alleged was produced in such great quantities from the year
1775 to 1803) should be entirely lost and forgotten in half a century’s
time. The descriptions and history of Lowestoft china in Mr. Llewellyn
Jewitt’s article in the July number of the _London Art Journal_ in 1863,
were the first to call attention to Lowestoft china, and I still
consider him the best and most trustworthy authority on the subject.
Previous to that time, in the catalogues of English Loan Collections and
Museums, the name even of Lowestoft does not appear, though the ware was
seen everywhere labelled vaguely “Foreign,” or “Oriental.” At a later
date Mr. Chaffers’s book appeared with a warm endorsement and
enthusiastic setting-forth of the Lowestoft factory and its wares, so
warm and embracing in its description that Mr. Jewitt in his later book,
“Ceramic Art in Great Britain,” fairly has to protest against such broad
sweeping into the Lowestoft net; and he must feel that he “builded
better than he knew” when he “wrote up” the Lowestoft factory. He says:
“Let me utter a word or two of caution to collectors against placing too
implicit a reliance upon what has been written concerning Lowestoft
china, and against taking for granted that all which is nowadays called
Lowestoft china is really the production of that manufactory. If all
that is ascribed to Lowestoft was ever made there the works must have
been the most extensive, and—if all the varieties of wares that are now
said to have been produced there were made it is asserted
simultaneously—the most extraordinary on record. The great bulk of the
specimens now unblushingly ascribed to Lowestoft I believe never were in
that town, much less ever made there.”
When Mr. Jewitt wrote thus he knew nothing about the vast additional
stock of Lowestoft in America, enough additional weight to swamp forever
the Lowestoft pretensions. Mr. Jewitt also resented with proper
indignation some criticisms which Mr. Chaffers dared to make upon his
_Art Journal_ paper, saying, with truth, that he (Chaffers) was indebted
to him for nearly every scrap of information about the Lowestoft factory
that he has embodied in his work. He might say for every scrap of any
importance. The three accounts form a typical example of the
controversies in private life, of the minor disputes that always arise
among china collectors, not only over the claims of the Lowestoft
factory, but over even a single piece of Lowestoft hard-paste porcelain.
The specimens of what are called Lowestoft ware that are most frequently
seen in America, are parts of tea-services, punch-bowls and pitchers,
coffee-pots and mugs. The pieces often bear crests, coats of arms, or
initials. Shields supported with birds, and escutcheons in dark blue are
also frequent. The initials are usually very gracefully interlaced.
Sometimes the tea-caddy will bear the crest or coat of arms with the
initials, while the remainder of the tea-service will have the initials
only.