Posts Tagged ‘1780s’

Worcester
Worcester was not perhaps the most obvious location for a major British porcelain manufacturer to be established because there were no local deposits of clay or coal; these had to be brought in by river. Nonetheless, it was there in 1751 that Dr John Wall and William Davis invested in a new porcelain factory.
1751-70
The new factory suffered heavy kiln losses, and in 1752 the partners bought up Benjamin Lund’s factory in Bristol and with it Lund’s secret porcelain formula that included Cornish soapstone. The use of soapstone gave Worcester porcelain increased durability, enabling its teapots to withstand hot liquids – those of most other British makers tended to crack in contact with boiling water. During the 1750s and 1760s Worcester specialized in teawares, sauceboats, pots for pate, meats and tarts, and pickle-dishes.
Early blue-and-white Worcester shows the influence of the Bristol factory, with shapes derived from British silver. Worcester’s coloured patterns were in the factory’s Unique form of chinoiserie that combined elements from China, Japan, Meissen, early Staffordshire, stoneware, and glass. This proved popular in the 1750s and is highly sought after by collectors today. By 1755 Worcester had perfected its blue-and-white wares by eliminating heavy blurring,
and was making fine tea services. Worcester can claim the credit for
the invention of printing on porcelain, and it used this technique extensively to produce overglaze black enamel and underglaze-blue printed decoration.
blue ground and also invented its famous “scale blue” (in which the underglaze blue ground was painted using a tiny fish-scale pattern) and developed other coloured grounds previously made famous by Sevres and Chelsea. The reserved panels on the coloured grounds were decorated with flowers and exotic “fancy birds”.
In the 1780s, with competition from Derby and imported French porcelain, and the influx of inexpensive Chinese wares, Worcester lost its premier position. Its recovery was slow, because the success of blueand-white printed pottery led to the decline of other, more expensive wares. In 1783 Davis, who had managed the firm since 1774, was bought out by
Thomas Flight, whose son, John
Flight, was to reverse Worcester’s ailing fortunes.
• BODY soft-paste porcelain with grey-blue cast
• GLAZE fully glazed inside the foot-rims and under the rims of lids
• FORMS teawares, sauceboats, and pickle-dishes
• DECORATION blue-and-white copies of Chinese wares; polychrome chinoiseries; overglaze black transfer-printing and underglaze-blue printing introduced
Marks
Most blue-and-white wares bear a workman’s mark, usually a simple sign of uncertain meaning
• GLAZE evenly controlled with slight yellow-green cast; under-rims of covers unglazed; to avoid glaze running down onto the kiln during firing it was wiped away from the inside of feet c.1758-83 in a technique known as “pegging”
• FORMS teawares, plates, dishes, and vases
• DECORATION blue-and-white printing, much of it for export; Chinese decoration less important; in London Giles decorated many pieces in Meissen or Sevres style
Marks
Mark used on printed wares (1758-85)
Mark used on blue-ground wares (c.1762-85)
“Pseudo-Meissen” mark used on some coloured wares in a European style (c.1760-70)
1774-92
• BODY paste declined in quality; a more straw-coloured or yellowish cast; not well controlled
• FORMS traditional styles continued to be made, but were not so well executed
• DECORATION very bright-blue printing, prone to blurring; slow transition from Rococo to Neo-classical decoration; greater French influence
Marks
Crescent mark still used in addition to this
cursive “W” printed in blue (c.1770-75)

Antique Mirrors
Although German glassmakers produced convex mirrors from the 15th century, it was not until c.1500 that flat mirror plates were made using the broad-glass technique. This was invented in Venice, and revolutionized mirror production during the 16th and 17th centuries. The technique was later replaced by the plate-glass process first used at the Saint Gobain Glasshouse (est. 1693), in Paris, which allowed the production of larger and more even mirror plates. The Parisian makers enjoyed unchallenged prosperity until the late 18th century when the British Plate Glass Manufactory in London succeeded in manufacturing the large plates, which were so admired.
BAROQUE MIRRORS
Late 17th-century southern European mirrors are usually of rectangular form, with the central plates invariably “bevelled” or chamfered at the edges and contained within mirrored borders; the plates are often engraved or etched with mythological or pastoral scenes. The carved frames, either giltwood or silvered, usually display a Baroque exuberance, with acanthus, putti, masks, and cornucopias. Late 17th-century northern European mirrors were often conceived of as dressing mirrors, designed en suite with matching dressing tables and torcheres (candle stands). Of rectangular form, frequently with convex or cushion-moulded frames and usually crowned by shaped crestings, which was often similarly carved, these late 17th-century mirrors display remarkable inventiveness in their use of materials. The production of larger plates led to the introduction of pier glasses, placed between the window piers, the culmination of which are the mirrors in the Galerie des Glaces at the palace of Versailles. Although Paris’s lead was followed throughout Europe, particularly in Italy, Britain, and Germany, with mirrored borders often enriched with coloured or engraved glass, the plates were almost always divided.
EARLY 18TH-CENTURY MIRRORS
Although French mirror-frames during the Louis XIV (1643-1715) and Regence (1715-23) periods are usually of carved and gilded lime, pine, or oak, enriched with masks, dragons, and serpents, Charles Crescent (1685-1768), the cabinet-maker to the Duc d’Orleans, supplied his patron with vast pier glasses with gilt-bronze frames. These important mirrors, so widely copied in the 19th century, were also produced in Germany and Sweden. However, in the main, German, Swedish, and Danish mirrors made in the first half of the 18th century tended to follow the lead of Paris, although in execution the carving is often slightly flatter.
During the Queen Anne and early Georgian periods a distinctive national style emerged in Britain. Thus, although tall pier glasses with bevelled, divided plates, and mirrored borders, enriched the window-piers of the great aristocratic houses, their frames began to be decorated in gilt-gesso, with finely etched and pounced decoration. This gave way between
c.1725 and 1750 to the fashion for more architectural mirrors in the Palladian style advocated by Lord Burlington (1694-1753) and William Kent (c.1685-1748). These mirrors often display triangular or scrolled, swan-neck pediments, centred by the mask of a Roman god, an acanthus spray, or an armorial cartouche. Although often gilded or painted cream, these mirrors are most frequently of walnut, with gilding usually reserved for the carved architectural mouldings and cresting. In North America mirrors with simple frames topped with arched crests were popular from the 1730s. Carved and gilded openwork shells were often inserted in the crests.
CHIPPENDALE AND ROCOCO MIRRORS
In the 1740s Palladianism gave way to the Rococo style. Inspired by the designs of Nicolas Pineau (1684-1754) in France, Johann Christian Hoppenhaupt (b.1719), in Germany, and Matthias Lock (c.1710-65) in England, the new vocabulary incorporated flowers, acanthus, C-scrolls, and even chinoiserie figures from the 1750s. Even the mirror-plate was decorated, and rare examples survive where the surface was painted in oils with putti and floral garlands. But it was the Chinese who perfected this art with their reverse-painted mirror pictures, which were exported to England from the mid-18thcentury.
The name of Thomas Chippendale (1718-79) is synonymous with the carved giltwood mirrors of the 1750s and 1760s. His designs were influential throughout Europe, particularly in Portugal, and North America, and indeed served as the inspiration for several 19th-century revivals, most importantly those of the 1830s, 1840s, and c.1900.
Rococo “Chippendale” mirrors of the 1750s, as well as those in the early Neo-classical style of the 1760s, are usually of carved and gilded lime or pine, with filigree applied decoration, often of gesso or plaster applied onto wire;
papier-mache examples also survive. This technique, which enables great depth and quality in the detailing but is much more vulnerable, was superseded by gilt-composition, a plaster that is heavier, solid, and cold to the touch, but which could be cast in moulds. Early North American Neo-classical mirrors had narrow mouldings enclosing rectilinear or oval glass, while later examples became heavier. Often the frame was round, with a convex mirror based on patterns by Thomas Sheraton 1851-1806) and George Smith (active c.1786-1828).
DRESSING AND CHEVAL MIRRORS
It was not until the 17th century that dressing mirrors became free-standing. Initially they were made of silver or silver-gilt with trestle supports to the reverse, and designed en suite with lady’s dressing-sets. During the latter half of he 17th century Venetian and Parisian craftsmen supplied exquisitely decorated toilet mirrors of this design to the ladies of the court. By the early 18th century toilet mirrors had become sturdier, often standing on plinth bases, which contained drawers, the most sophisticated being serpentine wonted; numerous examples, particularly from Britain, survive – either of walnut and parcel-gilt or of plain or carved mahogany, and even with painted or japanned decoration. The mirrors were, however, principally rectangular, and it was not until the 1770s that oval dressing mirrors, later popularized by Sheraton, appeared. Regency and American Federal examples tend to be more rectangular, the plates often positioned horizontally, the decoration restrained in the extreme and often found only in the baluster-turning of the upright supports.
Cheval or standing dressing mirrors were first recorded in Paris at the court of Louis WE and the design was quickly adopted in Britain. Under Napoleon I cheval mirrors reached a new height of extravagance and luxury, being mounted in gilt-bronze with mythological deities, stars, and Classical reliefs, the plates often arched and supported by Classical columns. This style was copied throughout Europe, particularly in Britain, Austria, Germany, and in North America, and it was also revived in the later 19th century under Napoleon III (1852-70).
19TH-CENTURY MIRRORS
In North America mirrors with arched crests in the 18th-century style continued to be made in the early 19th century and had simple ornament, were narrower, and had less top-heavy proportions. The Empire style, which was associated with Napoleon then spread throughout Europe and then to North America. The pier mirrors of the early 19th century are characterized by the use of ebonized and giltwood decoration, often enriched with Classical reliefs and architectural motifs in gilt-composition (gilt-lead in Sweden), or perhaps framing a verre eglomise panel. The mirrors of the later 19th century were almost all inspired by precedents of earlier centuries. However, they usually betray their age by a slight misinterpretation or embellishment of earlier ornament. The Rococo Revival was superseded by the “Jacobethan” or 16th- and 17th-century Mannerist designs in the mid-19th 9th century; toward the end of the century both Neo-classical and Rococo styles prevailed and the revival mirrors of this period are frequently directly copied from published designs.
• MIRROR GLASS 18th-century glass tends to be fairly thin, with the bevelling soft and shallow, and the cutting uneven; 19th-century glass is thicker, the bevelling cut at an acute angle, and the cutting even; original glass is desirable, and if the glass is cloudy it may be possible to have it re-silvered; replacing glass should generally be avoided.
• FRAMES composition frames are vulnerable to damage and are less expensive than giltwood or silvered frames.
• COLLECTING “Chippendale” mirrors are notoriously difficult to date, particularly if they have been re-gilded and a discolouring wash has been painted on the reverse of the frame; 19th-century copies do, however, often betray themselves through a misunderstanding of motifs and ornament; Rococo Revival mirrors tend to have over-fussy decoration and heavier carving.

Stands and racks
The term “stand” is used in a wide-ranging sense and implies any kind of support. Although the word can be used for a piece joined to another item of furniture, such as a cabinet stand, this section looks at stands complete in themselves. Such stands were specifically designed to be both highly practical and easily portable. Although they were often embellished with the fashionable decorative qualities of the day, the common feature of these pieces was that function always prevailed over style.
FOLIO AND READING STANDS
The folio stand allowed the reader to store a heavy book temporarily, to browse through at leisure, rather than having to keep taking it down from a library shelf and replacing it. Folio stands were usually adjustable, often with hinged or ratchet actions, to allow for different thicknesses of books or to hold several at once. Before
the 20th century it was common practice to read standing up, but books were heavy to hold. A reading stand, designed for resting the book on, provided the solution. Some reading stands were also intended to hold Music scores, while others were more robustly constructed to take the greater weight of a book. Like folio stands, reading stands could be adjusted so that the reader was able to place the book at different heights and angles.
CANTERBURIES
Thomas Sheraton (1751-1806) referred to two types of canterbury in The Cabinet Dictionary (1803): the music stand and the
supper tray. He described the first as “a small music stand”, or open-topped rack, with slatted partitions for the storage of loose sheets of music and bound music books. It generally had four short legs on casters, so that it could be moved or kicked away easily, and was short enough to be stored inconspicuously beneath the piano. Commonly used for the storage of magazines today, it was first introduced in Britain in the 1780s. It is thought that the canterbury was named after an Archbishop of Canterbury, for whom the first example was made. Two such stands were illustrated in A Collection of Designs for Household Furniture and Interior Decoration (1808) by George Smith (active c.1786-1826). He wrote that “they are intended for holding such music books as are in constant use and may be manufactured in mahogany, rosewood, or bronzed and gilt”.
Some stands had sides of wire latticework, and in these examples the slatted partitions were usually omitted. Others, for example some made for the International Exhibition of 1862 in London, were constructed of wood but decorated with mother-of-pearl inlay on papier-mache, which was then overpainted with gilt and coloured varnishes.
The second type of canterbury to which Sheraton referred was “a supper tray, made to stand by a table at supper, with a circular end, and three partitions cross-wise, to hold knives, forks, and plates, at that end, which is made circular on purpose”. Much taller than the music-stand type of canterbury, the supper tray resembles a small table. It was used, like the dumb waiter, when service in the dining-room was dispensed with, especially particularly at informal parties. It too stood on casters so that it was easy to move around, and often had splayed legs which provided greater stability.
DUMB WAITERS
First invented and used in
Britain c.1725, the dumb waiter consisted of a central shaft with
circular trays, which often revolved. The trays increased in size from top to bottom, and
terminated in a tripod foot. In The Cabinet
Dictionary, Sheraton described it as “a useful piece of furniture, to serve in some respects the place of a waiter, whence it is so named”. The absence of a human attendant helped confidential dining, and the dumb
waiter was generally placed at the corner of the dining-table for diners to help themselves to
additional plates, knives and forks, pudding, and cheese. After dinner, bottles of drink and glasses were placed on the trays of the stand.
Toward the end of the 18th century, the use of the dumb waiter had spread to France and Germany in differing forms. At that time in Britain, the dumb waiter was elaborated, and new varieties were introduced. Plain elegance was eschewed in favour of such decoration as Gothic fretwork, leaf moulding, and curves. Quadruped supports often supplanted the traditional tripod base. In 1803 Sheraton gave two new designs in his Dictionary: the first was “partly from the French taste”, and on the top was a thin layer of marble “which not only keeps cleaner and looks neater than mahogany, but also tends to keep the wine cool when a bottle for present use is placed upon it”. There were knife trays, shelves for plates, and holes, lined with tin, for bottles and decanters. Sheraton’s second design had two levels, not three, although there were drawers underneath the lower for cutlery or dirty plates, and it rested on a quadruped, spider-legged stand.
In the early 19th century in Britain a Classical air, which had no prototype in antiquity, was imparted to many types of furniture, including dumb waiters. Grecian motifs such as lyres provided novelty, and by the Victorian era designs for dumb waiters were as eclectic as those for any other piece of furniture.
WHATNOTS
This type of stand was intended to display a variety of objets d’art, ornaments, curiosities, books, and papers. Generally rectangular in shape, with three shelves, and possibly one or two drawers beneath them, they were supported by turned columns at the angles. The first published reference to the whatnot occurred in 1808 in the Correspondence of Sarah, Lady Lyttleton, but it is also mentioned in the cost books of the firm of
Gillow (est. c.1730) of Lancaster eight years earlier. Whatnots were extremely popular throughout the 19th century. They were usually made of mahogany or rosewood, and were sometimes embellished with ormolu
mounts. In addition, the shelves of some pieces were
edged with pierced brass galleries.
ETAGERES
The French etagere, meaning “stand”, combined the qualities of the English dumb waiter and the whatnot. A two- or sometimes three-tiered table, it was intended either for displaying objects or for serving food. In some cases the top tier could be removed and used as a tray. Casters and handles on the lower tier enabled the piece to be pulled around a room. French etageres were more highly decorated and sinuous than their British counterparts. By the second half of the 19th
century there was an enormous variety of designs available, ranging from ones that recalled the Louis XIV and Boulle styles to those featuring ormolu mounts, gilding, naturalistic motifs, and exaggerated Rococo curves and scrolls.
MUSIC STANDS
While the Canterbury was for storing music, the music stand was designed for playing a score. Music stands were purely functional before c.1770. Professional musicians provided their own, utilitarian, stands and in any case often played sitting down. The development of the music stand as a decorative item marks the fashion in the late 18th century for private recitals, at which works by composers of the chamber form, particularly Haydn, Mozart, and Schubert, were played. Even then, function took precedence over adornment.
• ALTERATIONS often polescreens have been converted into music stands; ensure that all the platforms on dumb waiters match, and that a three-tier waiter has not been converted into a two-tier one: look carefully at the size of the tier, and the balance and proportions.
• COLLECTING canterburies arc generally very popular with collectors because of their small size, particularly Regency examples, which because of their delicate form have often had one or more of their divisions replaced; small whatnots with hinged tops are very commercial and are generally made in mahogany; the tiers of some dumb waiters were hinged at either side with two drop flaps so that they could be discreetly stored away; good-quality waiters have galleried tiers.