Two South Views on Porcelain

by Oliver Fairclough

andscapes are a common theme in is a large porcelain bowl decorated on industrial buildings. This is a two- ceramic decoration, and although the front with a vignette of a house and handled cup or bowl, made in bone Lmany scenes on pottery and barns flanked by trees and with a hill china probably by one of the many porcelain are imaginary, others are fairly behind. This is inscribed Pen-y-Rhos. Staffordshire porcelain factories in accurate representations of real places. The other side has a farmyard scene about 1835. It has a bright green ground Examples on display in the Main with cattle and poultry in the reserved at the front with a view of Building in Cathays Park range from foreground. Although the bowl is industrial buildings in a gilt frame views of Dolgellau and of the Vale of unmarked, the paste, the heavy potting inscribed 'Pentewyn Ironworks' and at Neath on Nantgarw porcelain, to a and the decoration are all characteristic the back with the name 'I Hunt Esq' painting of Castel Gandolfo in Rome on of Nantgarw. A biscuit porcelain sherd within a vine scroll frame of raised an early 19th century dish from the of an identical bowl has also been found gilding flanked by highly coloured I mperial Porcelain Factory in St at the site of the factory. The decorator sprays of flowers in the rather opulent Petersburg. was probably Thomas Pardoe who taste of the period. The porcelain painter usually worked worked at Nantgarw from 1821 until his from an engraving; for example, the death in 1823. views of Harlech and Chepstow Castles Pen-y-Rhos is a farm one mile from on two Pinxton bulb pots in Gallery 4 Nantgarw and on the outskirts of are copied from prints after Paul Sandby . In the early 19th century it published 20 years before. Sometimes, was the home of Edward Edmunds, who though, the decorator was either sublet the site of the Nantgarw factory, a working from memory or from a graphic cottage and adjoining land by the source which does not survive, and his , first, in . 1814, to work can have considerable William Billingsley and Samuel Walker • Bone china cup painted with the Pentwyn topographical importance. The Derby and then to William Weston Young in ironworks, c.1835 porcelain dishes discussed in a previous 1820. Three Nantgarw services, now The Pentwyn Ironworks was on the Amgueddfa are among the earliest known dispersed, are said to have been made western edge of Abersychan, three miles views of Thomas lohness improvements for Edmunds or members of his family. from Pontypool. It was established in at Hafod in the 1780s. These are painted with flowers and may 1825 and comprised three blast furnaces Two recent Art Department date from Billingsleys occupation of the built by the partnership of Messers acquisitions, one a purchase, the other a site in 1817-19. The bowl is later, and Hunt. By 1839 it was the property of the gift, are further illustrations. The former may have been a gift from Young or Pentwyn Company, but it is not known Pardoe to Edmunds, who acted as one whether the Hunt family was still of Youngs trustees when he went involved. Before 1848 it passed to the bankrupt in 1822. As well as being a key firm of Williams and Co. and all the documentary piece of Nantgarw buildings were subsequently porcelain, the bowl bears a rare view of demolished. The vignette on this piece, a farmhouse in the 1820s. It which must have been commissioned by will be going on display in the new or for one of the Hunts, is the only Welsh ceramics gallery later this year. known view of this industrial site of the If the Pen-y-Rhos bowl is second quarter of the 19th century. It • Nantgarw porcelain bowl painted with Pen-y- representative of agriculture in South will also go on display at the end of the Rhos, 1821-3 Wales, the second piece has a view of year, following conservation. Fine Lace of Yesteryear

• Detail of 'Montgomeryshire lace' • Detail of 17th century Venetian lace The Welsh Folk Museums textile collections by stitching thousands of unimaginably tiny stitches. Although lace was certainly made as contain a vast amount of lace of all types buttonhole stitches over a base thread to a hobby in Wales, no organised craft industry which until now has been kept in storage. In form the pattern. Equally fine are some of the seems to have existed as it did in Devon and order to give access to at least part of this 18th century bobbin laces in which highly the East Midlands counties of England. collection, a small display has been arranged complex designs are formed by The embroidered, crocheted and machine- in the Costume Gallery to show a simultaneously weaving many threads made laces show the great variety of lace representative selection. around pins pushed through a pattern on a effects which could be obtained without The four cases comprise early Italian and supporting pillow. using the traditional labour-intensive French needlepoint lace, fine Brussels Among the many English laces on display methods. By the end of the 19th century, bobbin lace, British Honiton and Midlands is one tiny solitary Welsh piece, known as machines were weaving such good imitations laces and also a case of machine and Montgomeryshire lace, which is a very fine that the industry had virtually disappeared. i mitation laces. The needlepoint, some lace made of tape formed into a pattern and dating from the early 17th century, is made joined by needlemade net and filling Christine Stevens