Description:
English delft plate in blue, purple, and green, decorated with a ballooning scene. On September 15, 1784, Vincenzo Lunardi, an attache in the Neopolitan Embassy in London, made the first successful balloon ascent (containing hydrogen rather than hot air) in England, from Moorsfield (in the city of London) to Ware, Hertfordshire. The scene at Moorsfield that day was chaotic as a crowd of over 150,000, including the Prince of Wales (the future George IV), witnessed the flight of the hydrogen-filled balloon. A wooden scaffold crowded with spectators collapsed, and some onlookers took to pelting the occupants of carriages who blocked their view. Lunardi ascended in a square mesh basket outfitted with two wings and two oars with which he attempted to control his flight (horizontally by flapping with wings; vertically by rowing with oars.) Accompanying Lunardi on his flight were a cat, a dog, a pigeon in a cage, a bottle of wine, cold chicken, and other edibles. A barrage of prints, commemorative ceramics, balloon wigs, coats, hats, and bonnets celebrated this ascent. This plate was inspired by an aquatint, "A View of Mr. Lunardi's Balloon," by Francis Jukes, published in 1784. The rim is decorated with a light blue feathered edge and neoclassical festoons, including swags in dots and crosses in green and blue, and rudimentary leaf sprays made up of blue dots. The well has flock of three flying birds over a green balloon outlined in purple over a basket with two oars or paddles and a flag; tall trees done in tiers of strokes like layered palm fronds bending over towards the top; a building outlined in purple with a blue roof and green windows, purple fence, and blue foreground. F. H. Garner found a number of fragments of such plates in pottery waste tips in Lambeth indicating a Lambeth attribution to the Lambeth High Street and Glasshouse Street factories.
Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+64.039 |
