Collectors' Mugs of the Last 300 Years John Ainsley
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Ceramics History of Ceramics earthenwares, including pearlware and creamware were no longer available. Incidentally some might consider Collectors’ Mugs of the Pratt Ware a body type but the term refers only to the style of decoration and the colours used on a standard last 300 years John Ainsley pearlware body. These early wares, though frequently Mugs offer a convenience in size as well as display unmarked can always be recognised by their light 1 potential and represent a diminishing supply of real weight and the fineness of the potting which is often antiques made from every kind of body or paste made akin to porcelain. By about 1800 most of the soft paste Rare 17thC English delft mug, in the last 300 hundred years. These terms may need porcelain manufacturers had gone. It was an expensive painted in blue with a shield qualifying. For earthenwares we apply the standard paste to produce because of its fragility and kiln losses from the armorial bearings of were high and the wares were easily damaged in use. It the Worshipful Company of term body and for porcelains we refer to pastes. Hence Salters, 3 salt pots with grains still available to the collector are the varying groups of is surprising how much has survived as it is still of salt trailing from each, earthenwares known as slipwares, where the standard relatively common. The hardpastes produced by such floral decoration around the decoration is a trailed light or dark slip against a Companies as Newhall and Miles Mason were shield with butterfly & snail, contrasting body. Then there is English delft: notice I successful up to about 1800 but their days were motto on rim: ‘I am but earth use the lower case ‘d’. When referring to Dutch Delft numbered and 1813 seems to be about the last of the it is most trew, disdain mee we apply the capital ‘D’ as it represents the actual city line began by Cookworthy about forty years earlier. not for so are you, ano dom in Holland where the wares were produced. At 1 is an The reason is well-known and represents the most 1674’ also initials ‘WWR’, important invention in the history of ceramics. In about poss. a wedding present for a example of English delft and at 51 is a Dutch Delft liveryman of the Company. mug. In the 1770s Wedgwood invented creamware, an 1800 Josiah Spode invented bone china. Today the term Cotswold Auction Company, extremely light density earthenware, fine enough to seems something of a misnomer but it fitted the period Cheltenham. Jun 11. HP: compete with porcelain. There followed pearlware, perfectly. Spode took the standard, basic hardpaste mix £82,000. ABP: £96,760. basically a creamware body with a whitish finish and of 50% kaolin and 50% petuntse (china clay and china bluish glaze. With very few of the wares marked, the stone) and added 50% calcined ox bone. Bone china body and the glaze are key identifiers of the type, and has dominated the market since. It is light and strong in the bluish glaze can usually be found where it has use and its testimony can be found in the thousands of gathered thickest and pooled in areas near to footrims. tea services which have survived to this day. It is Also abundant in the eighteenth century were the certain that the examples at 30 and 40 are bone china. stonewares and examples commence at 10. Now, whilst most here are eighteenth or early 2 The dominant porcelain of the eighteenth century nineteenth the story of bodies, if not pastes remains Rare early Worcester mug was the Chinese export, brought in as ballast by the incomplete. By about 1800 the soft pastes were about decorated with exotic birds East India Company. These imports all but ceased in all gone. Pinxton came late and survived but a few amongst foliage in poly- the early 1790s following a row between the Company years into the nineteenth century, its creator William chrome in the Imari manner, and the ‘Chinamen’ who were the dealers who bought Billingsley fleeing from his debts to continue his 3.25in high. Hy. Duke & Son, the porcelain. The Company accused the dealers of dreams at Swansea and Nantgarw. Bone china was fast Dorchester. Sep 02. HP: ‘ringing’ at the auctions which were held on the replacing the hardpastes. In the field of earthenwares £26,000. ABP: £30,680. quayside and a long and exhausting court battle ensued the stonewares were to continue their rustic tradition. The prices quoted are actual which was to drag on for about seven years. The result Creamware production was declining by about 1820 Hammer Prices (HP) was inconclusive but there can be no doubt about the except for a brief reappearance as drabware and the followed by the Approximate pearlwares had expired by about 1830. A poorer, Buyer’s Price (ABP) which truth of the accusations. Proving them was a different includes an average buyer’s matter. In retribution the Company ceased their standard earthenware body was to prevail well into the premium of 15% + VAT. imports, except for a very few private commissions future, perhaps until the days of oven ware. Slipwares undertaken by captains. The shortages were a blow to were to continue but these do not represent a body type the dealers but gave added impetus to our home indus- as such, rather a form of decoration. The delftware had tries. At the time there was a huge demand for Chinese gone. Tin glazed earthenwares had no staying power wares and the English pearlwares, with their chinoiserie and were far too vulnerable to damage. However China designs began to partly fill the gap. Additionally in the had already shown the way. After about 1800 potters late 1770s Cookworthy at Plymouth invented the first began experimenting with a new, heavy duty body. This 3 English hardpaste porcelain, even more akin to the had to be capable of being styled and produced as tea Chinese imports. The patent was bought by Newhall, and dinner wares to compete with porcelain; and it The leading hardpaste manufacturer of the eighteenth should therefore be finished in the white to facilitate A c1790 Newhall mug decor- century. Perhaps twenty or so companies were the latest chinoiserie and Japanesque styles. Eventually ated in sepia by Fidelle dozens of manufacturers were to produce the new Duvivier, labels to underside, manufacturing this paste by about 1800 including Miles chip to rim, 14cm high. Mason, one of the dealers, or ‘Chinamen’ involved in stonewares or granite wares or ironstones. Spode was Trembath Welch, Great the dispute with the East India Company almost twenty early into the field as was Davenport and Turner but the Dunmow. Jul 03. HP: £9,500. years earlier. This new, ‘hybrid’ paste (it was fired at a most famous was Mason’s Patent Ironstone China, ABP: £11,210. much lower temperature than the Chinese hardpaste) patented in 1813 by Charles and James Mason, the sons was to prevail from the early 1780s to at least about of Miles Mason of hybrid hardpaste fame. So good 1813. Of course from the late 1740s there had always were these bodies that even today, almost 200 years on been the soft paste porcelains. Here are many examples there are many examples to be found, still in their commencing with early Worcester at 2, and at 3 is a original and perfect conditions, the marriages of bodies Newhall hardpaste porcelain mug. For early Plymouth, and glazes testament to their time-defying perfection. Cookworthy examples see 9 and 12. Pearlware can be Good, early Mason mugs start at about £80 and go 4 found from 13 onwards and creamware from 16. 1835- from there. I have included an example at 53. 1840 was the last of the light density earthenwares and Editor’s Note: These sample images have been Rare Liverpool Delft mug, the Victorian commemorative at 20 will certainly be downloaded from our Premier Online Database at printed by Sadler, c1762. www.antiques-info.co.uk which includes hundreds of Phillips, London. Feb 01. made in a heavier standard earthenware body. The fine HP: £8,200. ABP: £9,676. Cornish clays employed to make the lighter density more examples of the market below £250. ANTIQUES INFO - November/December 11 Ceramics 20 10 15 5 Worcester mug, painted blue Early Victorian Staffordshire 25 royal commemorative mug, George III large stoneware underglaze, Chinese figures Chelsea mug, 18thC, decor- 1838, printed 2 portraits of 18thC creamware commemo- salt glaze oven mug, decor- within leaf shaped reserves, ated with an owl, other birds ‘Victoria Regina’ & script in rative mug, 1792, painted ated with hunting scenes, 3.5in. Gorringes, Lewes. Jul & insects, red anchor mark, puce, 3in. Gorringes, Lewes. with British merchant ship trees, cottages and topers, 00. HP: £1,800. ABP: £2,124. 14cm high. (s.d.) Richard Apr 06. HP: £750. ABP: £885. ‘Brazen’ in full sail, initialled Winterton, Lichfield. Aug 09. body inscribed Edm’d AMI & dated, 5in. HP: £6,000. ABP: £7,080. Thompson, Melford 1782. Gorringes, Lewes. Apr 05. 24cm high. Rowley Fine Art HP: £600. ABP: £708. 6 Auctioneers, Ely. Sep 08. HP: £2,700. ABP: £3,186. 26 16 21 Sunderland or Newcastle Edwardian cricket mug Death of Nelson commemo- printed in red/white, England 11 rative creamware frog mug, and Australia cricketers in early 19thC, printed with Georgian Masonic lustre Important Worcester mug by cartouches, inscribed with portrait of Admiral Lord mug painted with columns James Ross, c1770-75. 1905 Australia-England, Nelson, interior applied with and chequer floor of lodge Phillips, London.