Chelsea porcelain factory

The Music Lesson, gold anchor, c. 1765, with bocage background. 15 3/8 × 12 1/4 × 8 3/4 inches, 22 lb. (39.1 × 31.1 × 22.2 cm, 10 kg). An example was sold for £8 in 1770;[1] different version, different angle.

Chelsea porcelain is the porcelain made by the Chelsea porcelain manufactory, the first important porcelain manufactory in England, established around 1743–45, and operating independently until 1770, when it was merged with Derby porcelain.[2] It made soft-paste porcelain throughout its history, though there were several changes in the "body" material and glaze used. Its wares were aimed at a luxury market, and its site in Chelsea, London, was close to the fashionable Ranelagh Gardens pleasure ground, opened in 1742.[3]

The first known wares are the "goat and bee" cream jugs with seated goats at the base, some examples of which are incised with "Chelsea", "1745" and a triangle.[4] The entrepreneurial director, at least from 1750, was Nicholas Sprimont, a Huguenot silversmith in Soho, but few private documents survive to aid a picture of the factory's history.[5] Early tablewares, being produced in profusion by 1750, depend on Meissen porcelain models and on silverware prototypes, such as salt cellars in the form of realistic shells.

Chelsea was known for its figures, initially mostly single standing figures of the Cries of London and other subjects. Many of these were very small by European standards, from about 2+1⁄2 to 3+1⁄2 inches (6 to 9 cm) high, overlapping with the category of "Chelsea Toys", for which the factory was famous in the 1750s and 1760s. These were very small pieces which often had metal mounts and were functional as bonbonnières (little boxes), scent bottles, needlecases, étuis, thimbles and small seals, many with inscriptions in French,[6] "almost invariably amorous suggestions",[7] but often misspelled.[8]

From about 1760, its inspiration was drawn more from Sèvres porcelain than Meissen, making grand garnitures of vases and elaborate large groups with seated couples in front of a bocage screen of flowering plants, all on a raised base of Rococo scrollwork. As with other English factories, much of the sales came from public auctions, held about once a year; copies of the catalogues for 1755, 1756 and (in part) 1761 are very useful to scholars.[9] In 1770, the manufactory was purchased by William Duesbury, owner of the Derby porcelain factory, and the wares are indistinguishable during the "Chelsea-Derby period" that lasted until 1784,[10] when the Chelsea factory was demolished and its moulds, patterns and many of its workmen and artists transferred to Derby.[11]

Plate, c. 1755, with three vignette scenes from Aesop's Fables
  1. ^ Honey, 60
  2. ^ The Bow factory was granted a patent in 1744 but no examples of its wares predating the first works of Chelsea porcelain are known.
  3. ^ Spero, 118
  4. ^ Honey, 16
  5. ^ Honey, 17–24
  6. ^ Spero, 120; Honey, 76–80
  7. ^ Honey, 78–80
  8. ^ Honey, 76–78
  9. ^ Lippert, 57–58
  10. ^ Or at least, distinguished with great uncertainty and difficulty. See Honey, 144–152.
  11. ^ Lippert, 58