Description:
English delft circular plate with a scalloped rim and blue decoration. The well has a chinoiserie coastal landscape with two figures crossing a bridge to a house, tall rock and tree, and a smaller house with a cross-like shape on the roof in the left background. In the foreground, there is a boat sailing in the water in front of the house and a small island with rocks, foliage, and running fence. According to Michael Archer, the "scene relates to a transfer-print, attributed to Robert Hancock, which appears on a Bow dish of c.1754-8 and more distantly to a Worcester basin of c.1760. Both these designs may derive from a 'Chinese landscape' in 'The Ladies Amusement,' which seems to have come out in c.1758-62." 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. After his engraving apprenticeship ended in 1753, Robert Hancock (1730-1817) worked at the Battersea Works and 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." The well is encircled by a blue band of two alternating sprig and fret patterns. The scalloped rim (28 lobes) is covered with an unusual faint, bianco-sopra-bianco formalized leaves and geometric design, often found used with a scalloped rim. The under-rim has two blue herbal sprigs.
Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+91.211 |
