Antique Collecting: Pottery And Porcelain

Antique Collecting: Pottery And Porcelain

English porcelain factories

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Worcester china, marked or unmarked, is remarkable for its slightly grey appearance and for the fact that the glaze shrinks away at the edges; particularly on the insides of the foot-rims of plates, cups, and similarly constructed pieces. This feature has never been imitated successfully, in spite of the fact that Worcester was much copied at the time it was made, and has continued to be faked ever since.

In 1783 the factory was bought by Thomas Flight and managed by his sons, a visit was paid to it shortly by King George III and Queen Charlotte, and a complete change in the style of ware began to take place. The new productions were of simple shapes, but very finely painted in the manner of miniatures. Popular subjects were groups of feathers or sea-shells carefully painted in natural colours. The china itself was highly glazed and often modelled with borders of 'pearls', left white or heavily gilt. On the death of one of Flight's sons in 1791 Martin Barr became a partner, and the firm became Flight and Barr; other changes involving the style of the firm took place in 1807 and 1813.

Robert Chamberlain left Flight's about 1783, and after a period in which he decorated porcelain bought from other factories, started his own works in Worcester. His sons were skilled painters, and they decorated in a manner similar to that of the older company. Chamberlain ware is of a marked grey tint and the paste is often lumpy, much showy gilding was used and a salmon-pink ground was very popular.

Thomas Grainger started a further Worcester factory in 1801, and produced wares similar to those of the other two factories. Finally, Chamberlain's formed a partnership with the original factory and this became eventually the Royal Worcester Porcelain Company, which is still in production.

Longton Hall

This Staffordshire china works was started in about 1750 and lasted for only ten years. Its productions and its very existence were almost forgotten until the year 1881, when newspaper advertisements relating to it were discovered and reprinted. Further details published in 1957, including some of the original documents and excavations on the actual factory site, confirmed the origin of many pieces that had been allocated to it.

The wares are made of a greyish paste, mostly glazed with what has been described as a covering resembling 'candle-grease', and many of the larger productions were sold with fire-cracks, bubbles and other blemishes. In spite of this, it has both charm and interest. Many of the designs of both tableware and figures are original, and the painting is occasionally of a high standard.

An underglaze colour of a noticeably strong dark blue was used, and this was overpainted sometimes with a thick white enamel to give a lace-like effect. An underglaze dark purple was also employed occasionally.
Many Longton Hall pieces are still confused with those from other factories, notably Liverpool. Most of it is not marked.

Liverpool

The city of Liverpool was the seat of a number of porcelain factories during the eighteenth century although evidence of their activities and their productions is scanty. Richard Chaffers is known to have made a ware similar to that of Worcester and containing soapstone as an ingredient. Zachariah Barnes is said to have been the maker of pieces printed in underglaze blue of a dark shade. Identified Liverpool porcelain is occasionally of good quality, but most of it is commonplace domestic ware. No figures have been found.

John Sadler and Guy Green of Liverpool claimed that they had invented a process for decorating pottery and porcelain with transfer-prints. In 1756 they said they had done this four years before, but they did not trouble to patent their process and it is open to argument whether they were the first to use it. Local porcelain was decorated by them, as well as ware from factories farther distant, and a small number of surviving Liverpool pieces are printed in several colours.

Lowestoft

A small factory was started in this Suffolk town in 1757, and continued in operation until 1802. In the past it received attention out of all proportion to the merit of its productions, and through a mistake in a book published in 1863 a very large amount of Chinese hard-paste porcelain was accredited to it. In spite of the fact that this has been proved a fallacy, much Chinese ware of the once-disputed type is still called 'Lowestoft'; not only in England, but also in America.

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