Teapot and cover
Cambrian Pottery (Established in Swansea in 1764, the Cambrian Pottery reached its creative peak under the proprietorship of Lewis Weston Dillwyn (1778-1855), who ran the Pottery (with a break between 1817 and 1824) from 1802 to 1836. Lewis Weston Dillwyn was a natural scientist, antiquarian, Member of Parliament, magistrate and landowner whose intellectual interests drove the Cambrian Pottery to become one of the most ambitious and artistically accomplished British potteries of the early 19th century. While the porcelain manufactured in Swansea between 1814 and 1825 justifies its reputation as among the finest of British porcelains, the pottery produced under Dillwyn’s ownership between 1802 and about 1809 was at its best an equally impressive achievement, most particularly that made for sale in the Pottery’s Cambrian Warehouse in London 1806-1808, the context for which this supper service was most likely created.)
Teapot, earthenware, square foot-rim, oblong body, slightly convex panels on body, shelving collar with moulded anthemions along rim; a pyramidal cover moulded with anthemions, the oblong finial gadrooned; a curved spout, upper spout moulded with an anthemion; a high, straight-topped loop handle with raised thumb spur; transfer-printed in puce with the 'Woman gathering flowers' pattern, a female figure gathering flowers in front of a landscape of water and distant pyramid-shaped islands, beneath an arching lace-style border issuing roccoco-style floral motifs, similar filigree lace-style border to lip-rim above miniature repeats of main pattern, interspersed with scrolling floral garlands and motifs, similar border to the cover, a filigree pattern to the finial, floral sprays to the upper and lower spout, a running interlocking geometric pattern on a filigree lace-type ground to the handle.
Creation/Production
Date: 1830-1850
Acquisition
Bequest, 10/12/1953
Measurements
Height
(cm): 16
Length
(cm): 16
Width
(cm): 13.4
Height
(in): 6
Length
(in): 6
Width
(in): 5
Techniques
slip-cast
forming
Applied Art
press-moulded
forming
Applied Art
assembled
forming
Applied Art
transfer-printed
decoration
Applied Art
glazed
decoration
Applied Art
Material
earthenware
glaze
