Chamberlain's Worcester Porcelain Botanical Oval Dish Painted With an Iris Circa 1815

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Chamberlain's Worcester Porcelain Botanical Oval Dish Painted with an Iris
Circa 1815

This large oval dish is a fine example … Read more Chamberlain's Worcester Porcelain Botanical Oval Dish Painted with an Iris
Circa 1815

This large oval dish is a fine example of the botanical painting for which Chamberlain's Worcester was celebrated during the Regency. The well is painted with a single specimen of a yellow and purple iris, the flower shown in full bloom above crossed sword-shaped leaves, its stem rising from a pointed green spathe, observed and shaded with the accuracy of a plate from a contemporary florilegium and set against the plain white ground so that nothing competes with the specimen. The flower, with its yellow standards and purple falls veined in yellow at the throat, compares closely with the Variegated Iris, Iris variegata, as figured in the first volume of Curtis's Botanical Magazine (plate 16, 1787). Issued in monthly parts from February 1787 with hand-colored engraved plates, the magazine became the principal source of the named botanical subjects painted on English porcelain and pottery in these years, at Chamberlain's and at rival factories in Derby and Staffordshire.

The broad rim is worked with a dense band of gilt vermicular tracery, a fine looping pattern of the kind sometimes described as worm-track or seaweed, framed by a gilt line at the inner edge and a gilt band at the outer. The contrast of the reserved white center against so richly gilded a border marks the dish out as a piece from an expensive dinner service, made for a table where it would be seen as much as used. Botanical subjects were painted chiefly on dessert services, which makes a large dish from a botanical dinner service the less usual survival.

The dish can be hung on its own with a plate hanger, where the single iris reads clearly against the white ground, or grouped with botanical prints and other English porcelain in a dining room or hall. It also sits well on a sideboard or in a plate rack, where the gilt rim catches the light.

Dimensions
Length: 16 inches (40.6 cm)
Width: 12½ inches (31.8 cm)
Height: 1½ inches (3.8 cm)

Marks
Painted in red script: Chamberlain's Worcester

Provenance
Private Collection, Canada
Earle D. Vandekar of Knightsbridge

Condition
Good.

References
Geoffrey A. Godden, Chamberlain-Worcester Porcelain, 1788–1852 (London: Barrie & Jenkins, 1982).
William Curtis, The Botanical Magazine; or, Flower-Garden Displayed, vol. 1 (London, 1787), plate 16, Iris variegata, Variegated Iris.
Museum of Royal Worcester, factory histories: Chamberlain; Severn Street Factory.

Historical Context
Robert Chamberlain, probably the first apprentice taken on at Dr. John Wall's Worcester factory and later its decorating manager, left soon after Thomas Flight bought the works in 1783 to set up as an independent decorator. By 1788 he had moved to the Severn Street site, and by about 1791 he was making his own porcelain there. The firm grew into the principal rival of the older Flight works across the city: the Prince of Wales granted it his Royal Warrant after visiting in 1807 and, as Prince Regent, commissioned a dessert service in 1811 in which every piece carried a different design. Botanical services were among the factory's most ambitious productions, answering an age of intense enthusiasm for horticulture and natural history in which each piece of a service carried its own carefully observed specimen.

(Ref: NY8062-mum) See less