Description:
Painted enamel snuff box decorated in blue, green, pink, purple, orange, and yellow with a transfer print of two swans with their necks arching towards each other on the top near a river bank, and small painted floral sprays on the sides and bottom. According to the dealer in 1964: "From the Manders Collection, and bearing the original Collection label, No. 466. These Swans, transfer-printed from the copper-plate engraving by Robert Hancock, are seem in the foreground of a Battersea enamel Plaque of the 'Round Game' illustrated by Cyril Cook, 'The Life & Work of Robert Hancock', Item 94, and a print in the Toppin Collection from an engraving by Hancock showing similar Swans is also illustrated by Cook, Item 119." After his engraving apprenticeship ended in 1753, Robert Hancock (1730-1817) worked at the Battersea Enamel Factory from 1753 to 1756 and briefly at the Bow Porcelain Works, before joining the Worcester Porcelain Company of Dr John Wall (1708-1776) where he worked from from 1756 to 1774 engraving copperplates for transfer-printing on porcelain, using designs adapted from contemporary engravings and paintings; many of his designs appear in "The Ladies Amusement." First published by the London print dealer and map seller, Robert Sayer (1725-1794) in 1759-1760, "The Ladies Amusement; or, Whole Art of Japanning Made Easy. / Illustrated in upwards of Fifteen-Hundred different Designs on Two Hundred Copper Plates; ... Drawn By Pillement and other Masters, and excellently Engraved. To which is added, in Letter-Press, The most approved Methods of Japanning, from the Preparation of the Subject to be decorated, to its being finished: with Directions for the due Choice of Composition, Colours, &c. &c...." was an important design source used by contemporary artist-designers and skilled craftsmen for the decoration of not only of Japanned wares, but for enamels, ceramics, furniture, textiles, tapestries, carpets, silver, etc. A second edition was published in 1762 and a third around 1775. Cyril Cook illustrates several unsigned and undated drawings, including one of swans, which appears in the first edition of "Amusement." Plate 82 in the 1762 edition shows two swans in a group of other birds, which is signed "C. Finn Delin." who was Charles Fenn, a bird and flower painter, from whose designs Hancock engraved several prints and who was living in Battersea in 1753.
Subjects:
Copper; Enamel and enameling; glaze (coating by location); polychrome Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+64.033 |
