Coalport Porcelain Imari Japan Pattern Part Dinner Service, 34 Pieces Circa 1820

Details

Description

Coalport Porcelain Imari Japan Pattern Part Dinner Service, 34 Pieces
Circa 1820

This thirty-four-piece Coalport porcelain part dinner service is … Read more Coalport Porcelain Imari Japan Pattern Part Dinner Service, 34 Pieces
Circa 1820

This thirty-four-piece Coalport porcelain part dinner service is painted with a brilliant Japan pattern in the Imari taste. Each piece centers on a basket of flowers standing before a low fence, from which rise a large cobalt-blue leaf bearing a gilt chrysanthemum head, a full iron-red peony, and a water lily on a leaf of paler blue, with sprays of small blossoms above and rockwork and water below.

The palette is the rich English Imari combination of underglaze cobalt blue and overglaze iron red, with a lighter blue wash and hand gilding that picks out the veins of the leaves and the hearts of the flowers. The border repeats the theme as a trailing branch of iron-red peonies and blue flower heads among cobalt foliage, laid over a ground of leaves penciled in iron red, and follows the shaped and scalloped rims. The decoration is painted by hand throughout, with the small variations from plate to plate that hand work brings, and the fine white translucent body gives the colors great depth.

The service comprises ten dinner plates, twelve soup plates, ten side plates, and two oval serving dishes.

The service sets a table for ten, with the two oval dishes for serving. The plates also display well on a dresser or sideboard, or hung as a group on a dining room wall.

Dimensions
Dinner plates, diameter: 9½ inches (24.1 cm)
Soup plates, diameter: 10 inches (25.4 cm)
Side plates, diameter: 7½ inches (19.1 cm)
Oval serving dishes, width: 10½ inches (26.7 cm)
Oval serving dishes, depth: 8 inches (20.3 cm)

Marks
Unmarked, as is usual for Coalport porcelain of this date. The attribution rests on the fine translucent porcelain body and the Coalport plate and dish shapes.

Provenance
Earle D. Vandekar of Knightsbridge

Condition
Good condition.

References
For Coalport Japan patterns and shapes of this period, see Geoffrey A. Godden, Coalport and Coalbrookdale Porcelains (London: Herbert Jenkins, 1970; revised edition, Antique Collectors’ Club, 1981).
Michael Messenger, Coalport 1795–1926 (Woodbridge: Antique Collectors’ Club, 1995).

Historical Context
John Rose established his porcelain factory at Coalport, on the River Severn in Shropshire, in the mid-1790s. In 1799 his firm took over the older Caughley works across the river, and in 1814 it absorbed the neighboring factory of Anstice, Horton and Rose, making Coalport one of the largest porcelain manufacturers in Britain; in 1820 Rose was awarded the gold medal of the Society of Arts for a leadless feldspathic glaze. Japan patterns, drawn from the Japanese export porcelain shipped through the port of Imari in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, were at the height of fashion during the Regency, and Coalport painted them in quantity on dinner, dessert and tea services.

(Ref: NY10841-nunu) See less