Description:
Scottish delft circular plate with blue decoration, which Rachel and Reginald French found in Connecticut. The Delftfield Pottery was founded in Glasgow in 1748 with the express purpose of selling tin-glazed earthenware to the Caribbean Islands and American colonies. The pottery was located on eight acres in the Broomielaw, near the River Clyde. After initial technical problems, the factory became extremely productive. In 1771, the pottery exported 2,600 pieces of delftware to Philadelphia; 12,828 to Virginia; and 19,000 pieces of delft and stoneware to Maryland. The pottery's principal shareholders, brothers Lawrence (1696-1764) and Robert Dinwiddie (1693-1770), were already involved in the tobacco trade and other shipping ventures. Lawrence, the more active member of the firm, lived in Glasgow; Robert resided in London until 1751 when he moved to Williamsburg, to serve as Lieutenant Governor of Virginia for the next six years. In addition to delftware, the Delftfield Pottery produced salt-glazed stoneware, creamware, and pearlware. A fragment corresponding with the standing figure and the figure in the boat was excavated at Glasgow near the site of the Delftfield factory. Plates with identical decoration are in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery. The well is decorated with a chinoiserie landscape scene of a figure crossing a curving bridge toward a tree and house on the other side of the bridge and with a sailing ship at sea in the background, all surrounded by a blue band. The rim decoration, which extends into the curvature, consists of four groups of grapes and two groups of foliate scrolls designs surrounded by a blue band. Scottish Port Records compiled by ceramics scholar George Haggarty, list "1,000 dozen Earthenware" left in the Ship Amity, Master Robt. Shaw, for Boston, on March 4, 1751" and "50 Cwt. of Earthenware, all British." departed on February 26, 1756, in the Ship Mary, with Master Donald Hyndman for Boston." These ceramics were likely delftware from the Delftfield Factory in Glasgow.
Subjects:
Pottery; glaze (coating by location) Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+91.193 |
