Part 10

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.

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.”

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.”

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The first method, with the design left in white, was produced in handsome and highly artistic styles, and there is a pattern known as the “Resist” pattern which is much sought after.

From Mr. W. G. Honey’s collection we have selected a very good example of this silver lustre with design in white. This is of the “Resist” pattern, its artistic excellence speaks for itself.

With regard to gold or purple lustre, the middle dish in the group in our illustration is gold lustre ware, and is probably of Swansea manufacture. Wedgwood produced a gold lustre of remarkable brilliancy. The dish above alluded to is decorated with stags and staghounds, but in some of the gold undecorated examples, such as Wedgwood’s, covered with a mottled ruby-gold lustre, the effect was due entirely to the shape and to the lustre.

The reason that this variety is called gold or purple lustre is that in the lights it shines like gold, and the rest of the pattern in those pieces decorated with flowers and floral pattern, glows with a rich purple.

This purple lustre shows more signs of the hand of time than any of the other lustres, and it is nearly always found to be partially worn off. We give an interesting example of a jug with gold lustre ground and raised coloured flowers from Mr. W. G. Honey’s collection.

* * * * *

NOTE.—Lustre ware is more fully treated in a chapter in the companion volume, “Chats on English Earthenware.”

XIII

LIVERPOOL WARE

XIII

LIVERPOOL WARE

It is the hope of the writer of these “Chats” that Worcester and Derby, Bristol and Plymouth, Bow and Chelsea have become something more than mere names to the readers who have followed our journeyings. The china-shelf has been shown to hold the monuments of men’s lives. Behind the delicate pencillings and the shower of rose-leaves lies many a tragic story. Liverpool and its ware is not the least of the great landmarks in the history of English ceramic art.

In entering on the threshold of the history of Liverpool, and of the printed ware stated to have been first produced there, we find ourselves in the midst of a controversy. If discussions upon points of china-collecting were waged physically, the opponents in their heat would have demolished each other long ago with their own china collections, but luckily, they have confined themselves to hurling opinions and nothing more tangible. Philosophically, they have agreed to differ, and have parted good friends, to renew the argument another day, or they have each gone to his last home and the echoes of the conflict have come down to us, and fresh battles are fought over the theories of dead collectors. Up till quite recently a wordy war was being waged over Lowestoft, and the laurels of that much-disputed factory were in great danger of being snatched away.

To John Sadler, of Liverpool, is generally ascribed the honour of having discovered the useful art of printing on pottery from copper-plate engravings. He was the son of Adam Sadler, a printer, in Liverpool, who had formerly served as a soldier under the Duke of Marlborough in the wars in the Low Countries. John Sadler carried on the business of an engraver in Harrington Street, and having noticed that some of his waste prints were used by children to stick on to fragments of earthenware obtained from the potteries, he commenced experiments with a view of extending this application to the purposes of decoration.

He associated himself about the year 1750 with Guy Green, who had succeeded to the printing business of Adam Sadler.