Pot, coffee 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.)
Coffee, or chocolate pot and cover, pearl-glazed earthenware, trumpet foot with two concentric turning circles, bombe form with loop handle, spout, and domed and shouldered cover with a pierced knop. Decorated in underglaze blue transfer, on one side with the crest of Wales- a crown with three feathers - above a palette, trumpet and ribbon, all over a floral swag; on the opposite side an elephant and howdah in a circular frame; with quivers to top left and bottom right, flowers and a trumpet to top right, trumpet and music to bottom left. Border above foot of rectangles and trefoils. Cover with trophy of pipes, trumpet, music, book and leaves on one side, quiver and roses to opposite side. Geometric border to body and cover rim of demi-lunettes on a dense diaper ground with ogees, and pendant lappets. Roundel of sprigs to knop, conventional floral decoration to back of handle and outside of spout.
Creation/Production
Date: 1795-1804
Acquisition
Purchase, 12/3/1959
Measurements
Height
(cm): 25.2
Length
(cm): 19.4
Width
(cm): 12.5
Height
(in): 9
Length
(in): 7
Width
(in): 4
Techniques
wheel-thrown
forming
Applied Art
moulded
forming
Applied Art
transfer-printed
decoration
Applied Art
underglaze blue
decoration
Applied Art
