NEWSLETTER : July 2006 - Edition Number 146
CONTENTS OF THIS ISSUE
From the President
Circle Meetings and Events
What's on??
A Du Paquier Slop Bowl
The English Theatre and Porcelain Figures
From the President
Since writing last the installation team has carried out the annual cleaning and arranging of the Myer Foundation Collection at Cranlana. It was completed in a day with six members of the team present. It is always a marvelous experience to be involved with such an interesting collection.
The exhibition that the Circle was to be involved with at Como this year had to be cancelled due to circumstances beyond our control. We were disappointed as it would have been an interesting programme to be part of.
The Circle’s annual Study Weekend at the end of May was an exciting two and a half days. We studied 18th century porcelain figures, their inspiration and source material. A display of seventy-five figures greeted the participants on Friday night. The figures were laid out in their source order with displays of source material set up behind them. There was a chronological display of photos showing the development of fashion as it changed through the 18th century from simple baroque to elaborate rococo. The opening discussion on Friday night was on the inspiration of Oriental porcelain and European sugar figures for the growing porcelain figure industry. This was followed by an open discussion. Saturday started with a lecture on the trade out of China and Japan as the catalyst for porcelain manufacture in Europe and England. This was followed by a lecture on deconstructing 18th century porcelain figures. It looked at the complex making of moulds and the various techniques of production. After each break there was a segment called ‘my favorite figure’. Six attendees presented a ten minute section on a particularly interesting figure in their collection. This proved to be a most fascinating exposé of both peoples ideas and their research. After lunch there were a series of workshops that covered mould making, slip casting, press moulding and repairing. There was also a workshop on the painting of a porcelain figure’s face. All participants were able to be involved in each of these workshops. Saturday night was a relaxed dinner that went on for several hours. Sunday started with a presentation on a set of the seasons discussing their mysterious background, their final understanding and their complicated restoration. This was followed by a lecture on the English theatre of the 18th century and the porcelain figures made to represent it. The last sessions were research projects with five people in each team learning what to look for in an 18th century figure. The weekend was an exciting and stimulating time at a beautiful conference site with good food, excellent company and comfortable beds – much enjoyed by all participants
Patricia Begg O.A.M.
President, July 2006
Circle Meetings and Events
August 2006 Meeting
This will be held on Tuesday 8th August 2006 at 7.30pm when Amanda Dunsmore, Curator, Decorative Arts and Antiquities, National Gallery of Victoria, will report on an exciting Egyptian archaeological dig in which she participated earlier this year, telling of the ceramics and other objects which were unearthed.
Venue:
Melbourne / South Yarra Community Centre
Fawkner Park
65 Toorak Road West
South Yarra 3141
2006 Winter Dinner
The response to this event at the home of Patricia and Chris Begg on Saturday 12th August 2006, has been overwhelming and as even large houses have a finite capacity for coping with the number of dinner guests, regretfully no more bookings can be accepted for this dinner.
September 2006 Meeting
This will be held on Tuesday 12th September 2006 at 7.30pm and will feature John Scarce speaking on Eighteenth Century Armorial Ceramics and looking at some of the families who ordered these specially decorated services from English factories and from China.
Venue:
Melbourne / South Yarra Community Centre
Fawkner Park
65 Toorak Road West
South Yarra 3141
What's on??
At the Hamilton Art Gallery
107 Brown Street, Hamilton
Arcs of Steel: Japanese Swords
In Japan the sword has been revered for centuries as one of the most important objects of fine craftsmanship and high art. This loan exhibition of historic swords from a private collection illustrates the superlative skills of Japanese metalworkers.
Until 17th September 2006
At the Ballarat Fine Gallery
40 Lydiard Street North, Ballarat
Worcester Porcelain: A Private Collection
A selection of works collected over a period of 40 years including works by well known painters such as Harry Davis and the Stintons.
Until 3rd September 2006
At National Gallery of Victoria
St Kilda Road, Melbourne
Happy Birthday to the Kangxi Emperor: Imperial Ceramics with Longevity Motifs
The Asian Arts Society of Australia presents this lecture by Peter Y. K. Lam, Director, The Art Museum of The Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Tuesday 22nd September 2006 at 6.30pm.
Ceramic History Lectures
Gordon Elliott MA PhD, formally Head of Staffordshire University’s MA course in Ceramic History has a disc of twelve lectures from his course. Details can be found on www.ceramicseminars.com.
A Du Paquier slop bowl
An address to the Circle on 6th June 2006 by Amanda Dunsmore, Curator, Decorative Arts and Antiquities, National Gallery of Victoria.
The Vienna Porcelain Factory plays a significant role in the story of the introduction of porcelain to Europe at the beginning of the 18th century. It was from Meissen that the secret of hard-paste porcelain was spread throughout Europe. In 1717 the secret was transferred to Vienna by the Meissen arcanist and gilder Christoph Conrad Hunger who brought information on paste and colours to Vienna. Samuel Stölzel also defected from the Meissen factory and brought vital information on kiln construction and operation. The knowledge and skills of these men was immediately exploited by a minor yet enterprising court official Claudius Innocentius du Paquier who established the Vienna Porcelain Factory. It was the 2nd factory in Europe, after Meissen, to produce hard paste porcelain and from the beginning the factory rivaled the production at Meissen.
Initially the kaolin clay, the key ingredient to producing hard paste porcelain, was imported from Saxony but soon local Austrian clays were used. By 1720 the factory was producing a variety of wares including chocolate beakers, coffee cups, pipes, walking stick handles, cutlery handles, terrines, candelabra, clock cases and mirror frames. Early vessel forms followed Asian models or copied European silverware. Decoration was taken from engravings and executed in schwarzlot (painting in black) or in soft shades of purple, blue, iron-red, green and yellow.
In 1744, due to increasing debts, the factory was taken over by the Empress Maria-Theresa and was converted to state ownership. In 1720 C.C. Hunger went on to Venice to establish a factory with Francesco Vezzi and then in the 1930s he attempted to set up a factory in Copenhagen.
The Du Paquier factory is known for its individuality of style, and one might even say eccentricity or quirkiness and one of its more distinctive styles was the fine painting of European subjects in black in a manner that resembled engravings.
This slop bowl in the NGV’s collection dates to around 1730 and is decorated in a very restrained manner with schwarzlot (black painted) decoration and applications of wash over the exterior, and a simple gilt band around the rim and at the base of the bowl. The interior is painted with three sprigs of chrysanthemum flowers and leaves with a single chrysanthemum flower in the centre. The exterior is decorated with a continuous scene from a wild boar hunt. There are two main scenes, divided by two large trees, one on either side of the bowl. On one side we see a man on horseback followed by a man on foot with two dogs at their side. They are both heading in the direction of the boar hunt on the other side of the bowl. The other side, clearly the principal scene on the bowl, shows the main action where a wild boar is being attacked by three dogs with a man to the left spearing the boar and a man on horseback to the right with his spear poised, ready to attack the boar.
The combination of hunting subjects and schwarzlot decoration must have been one of the more successful ventures of the factory. There are a few well-known services of hunting scenes, decorated in schwarzlot though it does not appear that the NGV’s bowl belongs to any of them. All of the known services have elaborate Laub und Bandelwork border designs, as opposed to the simple gilt edge. Perhaps the NGV’s bowl is more likely from a smaller tea, coffee or chocolate service? It is in pristine condition and does not appear to have been used at all.
Since the time of its acquisition it has been said that the decorator was possibly Jakob Helchis. The bowl is unmarked and is therefore attributed on stylistic grounds and choice of decorative subject. Whoever decorated it, the fact that it is unmarked suggests that it was factory decorated. The technique of drawing and hatching with a fine point was refined by Helchis and is a notable characteristic of his work but the fact that the NGV bowl is not decorated in this technique but rather in a very painterly manner, with a very full brush, might suggest that the decorator is not Helchis. The date of the bowl may also support this idea, given that Helchis was not known to be working at Du Paquier until the early 1930s. This is assuming that the date of c.1730 is appropriate, and again there is room for more research to confirm this.
The bowl was purchased by the Felton Bequest in 1939. Much of the Gallery’s 18th century porcelain was purchased by the Felton Bequest during 1939 and 1940. Sir Sydney Cockrell, Felton Adviser at the time, appears to have been the main instigator for these purchases and his biographer suggests that the one achievement of his Advisership of which he was ‘really proud’ was the ‘formation’, together with Bernard Rackham from the South Kensington Museum (V&A), of ‘a representative collection of European pottery and porcelain’ for Melbourne. In 1933 Percival Serle, the then part time curator of the Art Museum, had advocated for the enhancement of the existing collection, stating that ‘With the Felton Bequest behind us we could have a delightful miniature Victoria and Albert Museum’. To his great frustration his proposals were ignored until 1939.
Photographs of additional pieces of Du Paquier were then shown.
The scenes on these two beakers are attributed to Carl Wendelin Anreiter von Ziernfeld, one of his characteristics being the way in which the dark cloud formations are applied all around the outside of the rim. A similarly decorated schwarzlot teabowl and saucer went to auction at Christie’s on 29 March 1946. They appear to be decorated with scenes from war, as opposed to hunting, but are marked with Jacob Helchis’ initials. They sold for £3,500.
A Coffee pot, 1725-30, has a typically Baroque shape with a moulded mask beneath the spout, surrounded by tasselled lambrequins (drapery) and there is a small putto moulded in relief on the handle. The painting, on the other hand, is in the Chinoiserie style. On either side a pheasant perches in a flowering prunus tree with ‘eccentric’ rocks below. The dark band around the rim was originally silvered.
The English Theatre and Porcelain Figures
The following is an edited transcript of the talk given by John Scarce at the CGCA Warburton 2006 study weekend.
I will commence this morning by outlining some of the historical background to the English theatre in the period leading-up to the production of these porcelain figures. The English theatres were reopened by Charles 11 after the restoration of 1660 but he wanted the theatres to be regulated and above all, loyal to the Crown. Gone was the enclosed palace masque of his father’s day, but Charles didn’t want a large number of theatre companies and big open-air stages and so he compromised by replacing the former court masques with plays performed on the London stage by theatre companies under Royal control and whose performances reflected the taste of courtiers rather than the man in the street.
The right to perform was restricted to theatres having a Royal licence or patent and plays had to be submitted to the Master of the Revels for approval. The Royal Court thus dominated theatre until the end of the seventeenth century and even playwrights came from the aristocracy with the Dukes of Newcastle and Buckingham and a host of other peers writing popular plays.
Political intrigue after Charles’s death however and the lack of interest in the theatre by his immediate successors meant that the theatre became less popular and fighting broke out amongst the theatre managers as well as amongst the actors and the system of control fell apart.
The turmoil was complex and doesn’t concern us here this morning. In 1728 however, London society was mirrored in John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera which set popular folk tunes to satirical text. It was part of a movement to promote English music to counter the prevailing influence of Italian music and opera. Music was played on what were deemed to be English instruments, such as the salt-box, marrow-bones and the intriguing hum-strum, which was a string stretched over an inflated cow’s bladder. The Beggar’s Opera began an extraordinary decade in the life of the English theatre as the Government controls broke down and the Lord Chamberlain failed in his attempts to prosecute unlicensed theatres. A flood of new dramatic works appeared among them the biting satires of Henry Fielding and a host of works alluding to Royal scandals and to political corruption.
In 1737 Robert Walpole, angered by Henry Fielding’s satirical attacks on his government found his “smoking gun”, the evidence he needed to bring the theatre again under control. To a stunned House of Commons he read parts of the script of a new play called The Golden Rump which focused on King George 11, his piles and his flatulence. Even those who had opposed theatre control fell over themselves in shock-horror at such a satire on the monarch and so the new Licensing Law came into force. Henceforth all plays had to be submitted for censorship fourteen days before performance and even if they passed censorship, the Lord Chamberlain could intervene to ban their performance. Theatres required either a licence from the Lord Chamberlain or a Patent from the King and they were restricted to being located in the City of Westminster. Actors working outside the legal theatre could be arrested as vagrants.
The Licensing Act may not have helped George’s piles, but it certainly put the wind up theatre managers and playwrights and closed all but the two patent theatres of Drury Lane and Covent Garden. It meant that actors were the only artists subjected to censorship before their works were aired. Small theatres continued however, masquerading as chocolate houses and concert halls and giving theatrical performances as an incidental entertainment. This loop-hole was closed in 1752 after which all performances had to be licensed by a Magistrate.
Despite these controls theatre played an important part in the social life of all classes of Londoner. There was no formal Court theatre as on the Continent and the Royal Family attended the public theatres. George 111 and Queen Charlotte were avid theatre goers, attending every Monday night and alternating between the Drury Lane and the Covent Garden Theatres. Drury Lane was considered the more highbrow of the two as it presented Shakespeare etc whilst Covent Garden was more the home of farces and burlesques.
All classes thus mixed in the bustling auditoriums and because there were now only two theatres, these had to be enlarged to accommodate public demand. During the eighteenth century the theatres developed a deep stage bringing the actors into close contact with the audience, aiding the rise of stars such as David Garrick, James Quin and Peg Woffington. It is important to note that the actors Kitty Clive, Henry Woodward and Peg Woffington all came to the public’s attention as a result of appearing in early performances of The Beggar’s Opera. Kitty Clive is quoted as referring to the foreign singers in England as “a set of Italian squalling devils who come over to England to get our bread from us, and I say curse them all for a parcel of Italian bitches”. Kitty did not mince her words!
Bow Sphinxes – Peg Woffington and Kitty Clive c.1750
Actors and actresses were considered by some people in eighteenth century society to be nothing more than drifters and whores. In spite of this however, many members of the English aristocracy were on intimate terms with the leading actors and actresses of the day and love affairs blossomed between them and some marriages even occurred.
The English theatre at this period was transformed by the naturalistic acting style of David Garrick who did away with the melodramatic, overblown and exaggerated acting style of his contemporaries. Not only did Garrick change the style of English acting and brake away from the old acting conventions, he also, as manager of Drury Lane, revolutionized the theatres by removing the seating from the Stage, introducing curtain drops between acts and making the leading actors names prominent on the billboards.
Previously theatres were light by candle footlights and by circular candle chandeliers so that the stage and auditorium were bathed in the same level of light. Garrick introduced batteries of moving lights on poles with reflectors in the wings so that the stage was, for the first time, more brightly light than the body of the theatre and there was now scope for special lighting effects.
The stage at Drury Lane had boxes on three sides and even seating behind the stage on special occasions. As there was such intimate contact between audience and actor, facial expressions were a vital part of an actor’s performance and Garrick’s ability to transform his features was crucial to his success.
Around the stage however these was a row of vicious spikes to protect the actors from the audience rushing on stage to attack them. Two memorable stage invasions were the riots during the 1755 Chinese Festival when the audience objected to a troupe of French dancers at Drury Lane at the build-up to the Seven Years War, and in 1763 there were the “Half-Price” riots at both Drury Lane and Covent Garden when an attempt to abolish the tradition of tickets being available at half-price after 9.00pm was made. It has been calculated that both Drury Lane and Covent Garden had to be redecorated at least once every decade due to the damage caused by rowdy audiences. Drury Lane had been built by Christopher Wren in 1674 to hold less than 1,000 people; by 1794 it had been re-built twice and held some 3,600 patrons. Covent Garden also held an audience of about 3,000 by the 1790s.
The English theatre was not the genteel setting we might consider it to be. The doors opened a few hours before the 6.30pm performance and there was a great crush as Ladies sent their footmen ahead to stand in the queue for them. The seats in the pit had a shelf on the back upon which was put wine, ham, cold chops and pastries for the audience to eat during the play. The gentry sat in boxes or on the stage itself, with the up and coming middle classes in the gallery and footmen and servants seated up in the “Gods”. Whores paraded around the upper boxes and orange-sellers offered their fruit at exorbitant prices. At the side of the stage was the Green Room where actors mingled with their invited guests.
Bow David Garrick - the owner of Drury Lane c.1752
The theatre was the place to be seen and a visitor to London noted in his diary that members of the audience during a play would “take snuff, laugh aloud, or hold dialogues with their brethren from one side of the house to the other”. Disapproval of a performance was indicated by the knocking on the floor with their sticks. James Boswell told how he entertained the audience waiting for a play at Drury Lane by bellowing like a cow and that he received cries for several encores.
In the 1760s prices for theatre tickets ranged from 5 shillings for the boxes down to between 1 and 2 shillings for the galleries. All tastes were catered for and a night’s performance usually ran for three or four hours, beginning with an overture by the theatre orchestra, then the main item which might be a Shakespearian tragedy, followed by the Interval during which there might be a tight-rope walker or some music and dancing. The final item was a pantomime or a comedy performed as the “afterpiece”. It was generally understood that the main play was for the upper classes and that the Interlude stage-tricks and the afterpieces were for the common folk. The upper galleries of the theatres certainly swelled after the main play when people could gain admission for half-price.
Drury Lane was owned by a group of shareholders and employed about 150 people including some 80 actors. It spent as much as 40,000 pounds a year and made an annual profit of between 3,000 and 6,000 pounds. An Actor-Manager such as David Garrick thus had to defend his theatre against moralists who wanted to shut him down; he had to win-over an opinionated theatre-going public; he had to deal with jealous and quarrelsome actors; he had to stay within the tight controls imposed by the law, and on top of all of this, he had to turn a profit.
It was during this period of theatrical upheaval and change, and in response to the demand for Chinese export porcelain, that the first English porcelain factories appeared in the 1740s; at Bow c.1744, Chelsea and Derby c.1745, Longton Hall c.1750 and Worcester in 1752.
Such was the popularity of the theatre in eighteenth century England that the emerging English porcelain factories, especially Bow and Derby, soon began to produce figures of the leading actors and actresses. No longer relying on imported design ideas from Meissen or the Orient and not using silver-shapes and forms as prototypes, the porcelain modellers often based their figures on engravings of the actors which in turn were often based upon paintings.
These figures represent a snap-shot of a moment in a play, the fully costumed figures portraying some gesture based on the role they were playing and they indicate a convergence of taste between London theatre-goers and those in society who bought porcelain. Four of the Bow figures are standing full length and it was a remarkable feat for Bow to produce such large portrait figures as Kitty Clive and Henry Woodward just a few years after the commencement of the English porcelain industry. Why did Bow lead the way in producing these wonderful theatre-based figures?
Thomas Frye, the manager of the Bow factory, had a long association with the theatre and actors. Thomas Frye had accompanied fellow Irishman Herbert Stoppelaer to London in the late 1720s. Herbert Stoppelaer was a singer, musician, actor and painter and next to Kitty Clive it has been said that Stoppelaer was the most popular singer-actor in London in the 1730s. From the beginning, Thomas Frye was associated with the leading names in the fields of painting, music and the theatre. Instead of slavishly copying the output of Meissen, Bow, in its formative years, produced remarkable figures straight from the stage of contemporary London theatre and London life in general. It is tempting to see in the choosing of these subjects the guiding hand of Thomas Frye both approving the designs used by his modellers and suggesting new ones. It is also worth considering the fact that Frye may even have decorated or modelled some of the Bow figures.
The Bow factory thus catered for the middle class market, giving the people the useful wares they desired as well as the figures which adorned their mantels and dessert tables. Horace Walpole wrote in 1753 “Jellies, biscuits, sugar-plumbs, and creams have long given way to harlequins, gondoliers, Turks, Chinese, and shepherdesses of Saxon China”. The dessert centre piece was clearly an item that no table could afford to be without. Charles Hanbury Williams wrote of attending a dinner in 1748 and said “When the dessert was brought in, I thought it the most wonderful thing I ever beheld. I fancy’d myself either in a garden or at an opera”.
As with the other porcelain factories, many Bow theatre figures were modelled after mezzotint engravings of the actors, as mezzotints, with their gradations of tone, enabled artists like Frye to easily capture facial expressions, important when dealing with portraits of actors in their most heroic and memorable roles. The dramatic gestures and expressive features of actors such as Garrick could be captured by the printmakers and these in turn were translated into porcelain figures equally heroic. Mezzotints by other artists were also used, including those by the Irish born engravers James McArdell and Richard Houston as well as works by Charles Mosley and Charles Grignion.
Let’s return for a moment to the career of David Garrick who seems so central to this story. David Garrick was born in 1717 the son of an army officer of Huguenot descent. Garrick had briefly studied law and worked in the wine trade but was encouraged to write by his teacher Samuel Johnson. He then entered the world of the London theatre which he dominated for forty years, becoming not only the greatest actor of his day and a playwright himself, but also manager of the celebrated Drury Lane Theatre. His first play Lethe was staged at the Drury Lane Theatre on 15th April 1740, and he made his acting debut playing Richard 111 in 1741 at the Goodman’s Fields Theatre in Whitechapel. His performance was such a success that it was said by Thomas Grey “There are a dozen dukes of a night at Goodman’s Fields”.
In 1747 he bought a half-share in the Drury Lane Theatre for eight thousand pounds and was Actor-Manager there until his retirement in 1776. Garrick had a wide circle of influential friends which included William Hogarth. He also had good business acumen and combined his great acting talents with his job as theatre manager in having to read and possibly reject the numerous plays submitted to him by aspiring playwrights.
In all he wrote some 20 plays in addition to adapting and re-writing many others, including works by Shakespeare. It was a common practice of the time to adapt Shakespeare by omitting parts of the original text and adding new lines and scenes, this giving the leading actors the chance to cater for public tastes of the day and to stamp their own persona on a particular part.
Garrick entertained artists, writers and the gentry at his home by the Thames and when he retired such was his esteem that it was stated he ought to stand for parliament. He was also the first actor to exploit the publicity value of prints, and there are at least 176 different engraved portraits of Garrick, which would have been sold by the thousands in the print shops, compared to 162 known engraved portraits of George 111.
It is fitting therefore that Bow produced two figures of David Garrick. One striking figure depicts Garrick possibly in the role of Archer in George Farquhar’s play The Beau’ Stratagem and dates to about 1750. Garrick stands by a tree stump, mounted upon a square base. He wears a long coat over an embroidered waistcoat and tugs his lapel with his left hand while his right hand is thrust into his breeches pocket. A tricorne hat is tucked under his left arm, his mouth is open, his eyes are finely detailed, and his buttons and shoe buckles are individually applied. There is also incised detail to his stockings. Once again there is argument surrounding the figure, as Garrick has been said to be playing a Shakespearian role and not that of Archer whilst others contend that it is even Garrick dressed in his street clothes ! Whatever the truth, there seems little doubt that the person portrayed is indeed Garrick as the features compare very well with a later portrait of Garrick painted by Johann Zoffany c.1763.
Another figure, dating to about 1752, was of Garrick dressed as a Turk in the play Tamerlane although it is admitted that the character could have come from one of several contemporary plays which featured such roles.
A third figure, of a man in a similar pose to the Archer figure and having his shoes polished, might also represent Garrick. It seems to be the same character, done by the same modeller, and could be from another play written by George Farquhar. Some writers have erroneously suggested that the actor in the Bow figure of Falstaff was Garrick, but David Garrick never played this role on the professional stage.
Garrick did make his mark however with his portrayal of Richard 111. He was painted in this celebrated role by William Hogarth and this painting was then engraved by Hogarth and Charles Grignion. This print source was used by the Staffordshire potters in the early nineteenth century when they made a flat-back figure of Garrick, and it was used at Derby where Garrick was portrayed standing up, armed outstretched in typical eighteenth century acting style.
When the public were invited to see Hogarth’s engraving of his painting of Garrick as Richard 111 in 1746, the admission card included a theatrical mask bearing Garrick’s features, as well as trophies of Music and Drama. These trophies had been designed by William Hogarth to be set into the back of a chair used by Garrick when he assumed the presidency of the Shakespeare Club. It is fascinating to note that these trophies are echoed in the trophies of Art which are moulded into the high bases of some of the Bow figures of Kitty Clive. The same design of a mask and palette was later used to decorate the tablet to the actor James Quin erected in Bath Abbey.
Bow Falstaff played by Thomas Quinn c.1750
James Quin (1693 – 1766) was famous for his portrayal of Falstaff, a role he first played in 1721, and his figure was modelled at Bow. It is based upon Francis Hayman’s painting of Quin at the Vauxhall Gardens painted just before 1742 as engraved by Charles Grignion. This print was also used as the basis for the 1765 Derby figure of him. Quin’s stranglehold over the role of Falstaff lasted until his retirement to Bath in 1750.
Two white and one coloured version of this early Bow figure of c.1748 – 1750 are recorded. The palette of the coloured figure is the same as that on the Bow Sphinxes and the quality of the porcelain precludes it being later than 1750. The colour is applied in pale uneven washes together with iron-red and black and gilt highlights are superimposed over a brown colour. The Bow figure stands on a square base with Quin’s clean-shaven head tilted back as he addresses the audience in the rear of the theatre. The detail is such that we see his imperfect teeth through his carefully painted lips; the pupils of his eyes have been indicated as have the nostrils and eyebrows. With the detail of the lips and teeth, it is almost as if the figure was preparing to speak. Interestingly, in 1754 Quin declined an invitation to again play Falstaff as by this time he had lost all of his teeth and was not able to enunciate as before.
About 1750 Bow produced figures of the actors Kitty Clive and Henry Woodward in their roles of The Fine Lady, or Mrs Riot and The Fine Gentleman in David Garrick’s play Lethe which had been revised in 1749 by Garrick to include these additional two characters. Lethe portrayed a group of fashionable London characters who meet in the Underworld and then pour out their troubles to try and forget them and start afresh.
The Fine Gentleman says of himself: “Faith, my existence is merely supported by amusements. I dress, visit, study, taste, write sonnets; by birth, travel, education, and natural abilities I am entitled to lead the fashion. I am the principal connoisseur at all auctions, chief arbiter at assemblies, professional critic at the theatres and a Fine Gentleman everywhere”.
The other Fine Lady in Lethe, Mrs Tatoo, says this abut the life of a typical fine lady: “She lies in Bed all morning, rattles about all Day, and sits up at Night; she goes everywhere, and sees everything; knows every body, and loves no body; ridicules her Friends, coquets with her Lovers, sets ‘em together by the Ears, tells Fibs, makes Mischief, buys China, cheats at Cards, keeps a Pug-dog, hates the Parsons; she laughs much, talks loud, never blushes, says what she will, does what she will, goes where she will, marries whom she pleases, hates her Husband in a Month, breaks His Heart in four, becomes a Widow, slips from her Gallants, and begins the World again – That’s life for you? What do you think of a fine Lady now?”
After the play’s success engravings and mezzotints were published of the actors in their leading roles. The Bow figures were direct copies of the prints and not long afterwards the Derby factory copied the Bow figures. The Derby figure was copied directly from the Bow model; a mould having been made of the Bow original, the Derby figure was then cast from this mould and shrunk in the kiln firing by about one fifth.
The mezzotint of Henry Woodward as The Fine Gentleman was engraved by James McArdell after a drawing by Francis Hayman. The mezzotint of Kitty Clive as Mrs Riot was engraved by Charles Mosley in 1750 after a watercolour by Thomas Worlidge, the original of which was owned by Horace Walpole.
Sophisticated, well designed and well potted, the figures of Kitty Clive and Henry Woodward were the earliest full length figures made by any English porcelain manufacturer. Most examples of Clive and Woodward are in the white although coloured versions exist and the London Account Book of William Duesbury includes reference to “For enamelling Mrs. Clive three shillings”.
Bow Kitty Clive as the fine lady c.1750
The Bow figure of Kitty shows her wearing a lace cap, lace trimmed jacket and crinoline and with a dog under her right arm. In the print of Kitty by Mosley, her pug dog appears to have the face of an old man, perhaps a reference to her husband.
Whilst most figures of Kitty appear on a low square base, several are upon high bases with rococo ornament and trophies alluding to music and the theatre which I have referred to earlier. A unique example of Henry Woodward upon this rococo stand is in the Boston Museum of Fine Art where there is another unique example of Woodward, this time in unglazed biscuit porcelain.
Kitty Clive was born in 1711 the daughter of a Dublin lawyer who began her acting career in 1732 playing Polly Peacham in The Beggars Opera, which also starred Henry Woodward. Kitty was considered to be a “singing actress” and even Handel wrote songs for her. Dr Johnson said of her “Mrs Clive was a better romp than ever I saw in nature”. Music historian Charles Burney referred to her as “the best comic actress, perhaps, that ever trod our stage, and perhaps the worst singer”. The dramatist Henry Fielding said “Kitty Clive is to acting what Shakespeare is to poetry and what Hogarth is to painting”.
Henry Woodward appeared in the first Drury Lane performance of The Beggar’s Opera in 1732 when he was only 18 years of age and he was aged 35 when he played The Fine Gentleman but he appears as an older person in the Bow figure. He was a popular actor and mime who was at home playing comedy roles as he was playing Shakespeare. He was also something of a Dandy and loved to wear fine clothes.
In the Bow figure Woodward stands against a plinth, hands in pockets, wearing a large foppish coat which has cuffs of a rich brocade to match his waistcoat, and an oversized tricorne hat trimmed with fur. His sword, which hangs freely in the mezzotint, has been attached to the base of the figure for stability and the braid of his wig falls to his mid-calf and to top it off, there is a ribbon in his hair. It is a tour de force when we consider that the coat buttons, the waistcoat frills, the hat corners, the shoe buckles and the seals all had to be attached by the repairer, not to forget the sword and its straps.
Even Woodward’s vest and stockings have lines incised into them to imitate fabric and this aspect has been linked to the engraving background of Thomas Frye who, knowing that the figure was to be issued in the white, ensured that the details normally added by a painter were not lost.
Also from Bow are a pair of Sphinxes, one depicting the Irish actress Peg Woffington, and the other possibly representing Kitty Clive. They are painted and gilt in a style similar to the figure of James Quin as Falstaff. With the faces naively painted in bold colours they sit upon elaborate rococo bases, facing each other and wearing caps and ruff collars and bedecked with earrings and necklaces. The features of Peg Woffington are considered by some to be based on a portrait of her painted by Arthur Pond c.1741 and later engraved by James McArdell. The head-dress worn by Peg Woffington is the same as those worn by the female attendants of the Queen of Sheba in a painting by Veronese. Thomas Fry made an engraving of Veronese’s painting. Did Fry influence the modeling of the Sphinxes?
Bow Peg Woffington as the Fruit Seller c.1748
Peg Woffington was very popular and a renowned beauty and was a talented actress. She often appeared on stage dressed for the male role of “Sir Harry Wildair” in Gorge Farquhar’s farce The Constant Couple. Peg only lived for forty years and much of her life is shrouded in mystery. As the face on the Sphinx however, David Garrick’s mistress was thus destined to grace mantelpieces alongside other the other Bow figures of actors and actresses in their best-known roles.
Other Bow figures with a connection to the theatre are a figure named “Faustina” after the Italian opera singer Faustina Bordoni who had been brought to London by Handel in 1728. The features are based on a portrait of Faustina painted by Rosalba and engraved by Charles Grignion but the figure itself is based on the Meissen figure of “Smelling” from a series of “The Senses”. None of the other Meissen “Senses” was copied by Bow so obviously “Smelling” was chosen as it must have resembled Handel’s singer and the head was re-modeled after the engraving. Faustina had left England by this time but memories of her lingered.
In about 1755 Bow produced a figure of the Salt-box player, one version having the Harlequin device of playing cards upon his costume, thus linking him to the theatre and of course the Salt-box featured in The Beggar’s Opera. Even the figure’s floppy hat placed over a turban alludes to the shaven head of an actor which was covered by a turban when he was not wearing a wig. Seated, wearing a ruff collar over his jacket and with a salt-box on his lap, the features of the Salt-box figure have been likened to those of the tenor John Beard, who also appeared with Kitty Clive in Lethe and who in 1761 became the manager of the Covent Garden Theatre. In 1756, John Bowcock, the salesman for the Bow factory, referred to an order for 36 white Salt-box figures which testifies to their popularity.
Chelsea
Nicholas Sprimont of Chelsea was concerned with catering for the upper-class market, educated ladies and gentleman who had been on the “Grand Tour” and who were familiar with the Classics and the figures from ancient mythology. Hence many of Chelsea’s porcelain figures were based upon allegorical subjects and we have a host of Mars, Junos and Cupids etc. Of the Chelsea figures made around 1750 there are however a rare pair of Sphinxes mounted on wedge-shaped bases adorned with rococo scrolls and with their heads tilting towards one another. It is claimed that one bears the likeness of Kitty Clive again taken from Charles Worlidge’s watercolour of Kitty as engraved by Charles Moseley, and that the second Sphinx represents her rival Peg Woffington.
David Garrick’s partner at Drury Lane, James Lacy, in 1740 bought the London mansion of Lord Ranelagh and spent 16,000 pounds developing London’s fashionable pleasure gardens dominated by a Rotunda 150 feet in diameter with a central stage and two tiers of 52 boxes around the walls. The pleasure gardens featured music and dancing followed by supper at a guinea a ticket and they remained open until 1804.
A masked ball was held in the Ranelagh Gardens on 24th May 1759 to celebrate the birthday of the Prince of Wales. This gala ball led to Chelsea producing some fourteen figure models known as the “Ranelagh Masqueraders” who wear fancy dress costume and who stand up to eight and a half inches tall upon mound bases which are decorated with gilt scrolls and applied leaves and flowers. Their comparatively small, restrained rococo bases and their lack of a heavy bocage point to their being made early in the Chelsea Gold Anchor period.
Larger models, up to twelve inches high on more elaborate bases are sometimes referred to as the “Vauxhall Revellers” whilst another group, the “Vauxhall Singers” consist of an actor in a plumed hat holding a mask together with his companion is a masked Turkish lady in a fur edged cloak.
Longton Hall
In 1755-1756 Longton Hall produced a figure of an actor reading his script. He sits upon a rocky base, legs crossed, holding his script in both hands and staring pensively ahead as he struggles to learn his lines.
Derby
The Derby model of Kitty Clive as Mrs Riot, The Fine Lady, was made in two versions, the smaller being a direct copy of the Bow figure. The larger version differs from the Bow by having minor variations in the drapery folds and by having a double, instead of a single ruff around her neck. She can stand on a star-shaped base or upon a pad base and these bases are decorated in slip with prunus blossom. This figure is from the Derby “dry-edge” period c.1750. Only one example of a Derby figure of Kitty’s partner Henry Woodward has ever been recorded although other sources say that it was never made.
Other theatre figures were produced at Derby in the period 1756 to 1769. David Garrick was modelled by Derby in his role of Tancred wearing a shako (which is a military headdress) and a fur-lined dolman (or cape) with gilt facings. This was from the play Tancred and Sigismunda by James Thompson which opened in London in 1745.
James Quin was also modelled at Derby in his role of Falstaff, dressed in a plumed hat, baggy breeches and carrying a sword and shield. This figure is based upon the c.1751 McArdell engraving of Francis Hayman’s portrait. Unlike the Bow figure of Falstaff however, the Derby version shows him wearing a beard and the figure does not have the upward angle of gaze as depicted at Bow and he is more rotund. The stance however is the same.
A Derby figure of David Garrick as Richard 111 was based on John Dixon’s mezzotint of a portrait of the actor painted by Nathaniel Dance c.1771. The same model was re-issued in the 1790s but the head was altered so that the features were of the actor John Philip Kemble who took over the role of Richard 111 from David Garrick. Even more intriguing is the fact that this second model was itself altered in about 1815 when the face was painted to resemble the actor Edmund Kean who was then playing the title role of Richard 111 upon the London stage. Some people have attributed the figures of Quin and Garrick to the modeller John Bacon, but this cannot be verified.
Derby also produced figures of the Ranelagh Dancers, not in large sets as at Chelsea, but as a pair issued in several different sizes. One finely modelled pair depict the elegantly dressed male dancer holding before him an inscribed letter and the female dancer with plumes in her hair wears a locket representing an admission ticket to the gardens. This detail does not appear on all of the figures and the female has been linked to a mezzotint of Mary, Duchess of Ancaster published by James McArdell in 1757 after a portrait of her by Thomas Hudson. The Ranelagh Dancers, each with one hand upon hip and the other hand outstretched were also featured on candlesticks, the figures standing before an elaborate bocage supporting the candle sconces.
Since we are dealing with the theatre, we can mention the Derby figure of Shakespeare based upon the statue of Shakespeare in Poets’ Corner in Westminster Abbey which was sculpted by Peter Scheemaker. No portraits of Shakespeare were done during his lifetime and this figure shows him wearing a mixture of sixteenth and eighteenth century styles. He is depicted standing by a pedestal which supports three books and upon which he leans his right elbow. His left hand points to a scroll which has a passage from his play The Tempest referring to mortality. The stance, with crossed-legs, leaning body and head resting upon his hand, is a classic pose representing melancholy.
The heads adorning the pedestal’s corners are those of his patron Queen Elizabeth 1st, together with the heads of Richard 111 and Henry V, characters from two of his celebrated plays. This figure of Shakespeare is often paired with one of the poet John Milton and may have been copied from a plaster or terra cotta model of the figure in Westminster Abbey. Copying such models, few of which survive today, was another design source for the porcelain figure makers in addition to using the various published engravings of people.
As the European factories operated under Court Patronage and were subsidised by their patrons, imperfect pieces could often afford to be discarded. The English porcelain factories however did not have that luxury as they were businesses having to cater for all their clients whether they be aristocratic or the rising middle classes. To succeed, the English factories had to appeal to the public at large. Due to this factor as well as the fact that English porcelain was still somewhat experimental in nature, some of the early figures are flawed or imperfect. It is this of course which today adds to their charm.
Sacheverell Sitwell wrote a small book entitled “Theatre Figures in Porcelain” and he includes these words about theatre figures which I would like to use in closing:
“They are not dead, but living figures. They live when we look at them; and in this they are luckier than actors, whose art dies with them. They are small and fragile, and one of the minor beauties of the age of reason. This is their one and only performance, and it is playing all the time”.
Bibliography
“Ceramics, Ethics & Scandal” Rosalie Wise Sharp, RWD Books, Canada, 2002
“Hogarth’s China: Hogarth’s Paintings and 18th Century Ceramics” Lars Tharp, Merrell Holberton, London, 1997
“Eighteenth Century English Porcelain Figures 1745 – 1795” Peter Bradshaw, Antique Collectors’ Club, Woodbridge, 1981
“The Pleasures of the Imagination: English Culture in the Eighteenth Century” John Brewer, Harper Collins, London, 1997
“Derby Porcelain: The Golden Years 1750 – 1770” Dennis Rice
“Bow Porcelain and the London Theatre” Raymond Yarborough, Front and Centre Publications, Michigan, 1996
“London 1753” Sheila O’Connell, The British Museum Press, London, 2003
“A Treasury of Bow” Begg and Taylor, CGCA, Melbourne, 2000
“Chelsea Porcelain” Elizabeth Adams, The British Museum Press, London, 2001
“Eighteenth Century Porcelain in the Collection of the Indianapolis Museum of Art” Catherine Lippert, Indiana University Press, 1987
“Bow Porcelain Figures 1748 – 1774” Peter Bradshaw, Barrie & Jenkins, London, 1992
“White Gold: The influence and inspiration of Blanc de Chine porcelain on English and Continental porcelain” Curator Patricia Begg, CGCA, Melbourne, 2004