The Prodigal Son’s Teapot c.1770

The Parable of the Prodigal Son was a recurrent theme in repertoire of the publishers of satirical prints during the third quarter of the eighteenth-century. This was a period in which the overt didacticism of Hogarth’s era was seemingly giving way to a more laissez-faire mood, in which the supposed excesses of the libertine were regarded as a source of wry amusement rather than an extensional threat to the moral health of the nation.

The popularity of the Prodigal Son as a theme for print-makers presumably owed something to the fact that the early plates in the series usually allowed customers to indulge themselves in scenes of rakish excess, safe in the knowledge that they were framed against the broader backdrop of a Christian morality tale and therefore remained within the bounds of contemporary notions of politeness. One only has to look at the two most famous examples of Prodigal Son prints from this period – published by Robert Sayer and Carington Bowles respectively – to note that the scenes of the wayward youth “Reveling with the Harlots” always seem to be rendered with far more enthusiasm than those of inevitable reconciliation that marks the son’s return to clean and sober living.

This Liverpool porcelain teapot indicates that the theme was popular enough to make the leap from print into other forms of material culture. It’s decorated with a transfer print adapted from Richard Purcell’s mezzotint’s after an original work by Sébastien Leclerc II which was published by Robert Sayer c.1765. The original print is one from a series of six engravings that tell the complete story of the Prodigal Son. As usual with pottery transfer printing, the design has been altered significantly to reflect the size and shape of the vessel and the comparatively limited skills of the engraver (who may have been a potter rather than trained draughtsman). I’ve provided an image of the original engraving from the British Museum collection below for comparison.

The Political House that Jack Built on Creamware

 

 

William Hone’s The Political House that Jack Built was arguably one of the most influential pieces of political satire published in Britain during the early nineteenth-century. First published in December 1819, during the febrile months which followed the Peterloo Massacre, the pamphlet used the deceptively simple format of the children’s book in order to launch a blistering attack on the British political establishment. The illustrations were provided by the young caricaturist George Cruikshank and were executed as wood-engravings in order to reduce the cost of the finished product and ensure that it was accessible to as wide an audience as possible. Some 100,000 copies were thought to have been sold in the 18 months following its release, it spawned a plethora of contemporary imitators and was to continue to influence the aesthetic style of Radical political satire for at least a generation.

Given the contemporary commercial success enjoyed by The Political House… it’s not entirely surprising that the illustrations from the book were taken up by the pottery trade and transfer printed onto creamware. Nevertheless, I must admit to being somewhat surprised when I came across these two plates in an auction catalogue recently. After all, scenes of famine, civil unrest and Radical political satire are not normally the sort of things one expects to see staring back at you from the kitchen dresser. Perhaps this explains why these plates appear to be so rare?

They are decorated with transfers of cuts 8 and 9 from Hone and Cruikshank’s pamphlet, with each illustration being accompanied by a short quote from the text. The plate on the right, shows the starving people of Manchester (or England as a whole) watching in despair as their fellows are attacked by a rampaging group of yeoman cavalry (à la Peterloo) and is accompanied by the text: “What man seeing this, and having human feelings, does not blush and hang his head to think himself a man?” The plate on the left is decorated with an image of Sidmouth, Castlereagh and Canning in conversation. The text reads: “Dream after dream ensues and they dream that they shall still succeed and still are disappoint[ed].” A quote which Hone lifted from William Cowper’s epic poem The Task (1785) and which refers to the dogged pursuit of a deluded and worthless aim.

As I said before, these plates are rather rare and it appears as though a number of people were keen on acquiring them when they came up at auction the other week. In the end they sold for £850, meaning that the winning bidder will have to part with just over £1,000 once the auctioneer’s fee and any taxes are factored in.

Transfer printing on pottery – James Gillray’s Independence

 

James Gillray’s caricature of Thomas Tyrwhitt Jones (1765 – 1811), entitled Independence (1799), was copied and used as a decorative design on English pottery during the early nineteenth-century. The potteries would employ an engraver to etch the desired image onto a copperplate. The plate was heated and inked in the normal way, before being overlaid with damp tissue paper and passed through a rolling press. The tissue paper was then peeled from the plate, wrapped around a piece of pottery and burnished to leave an impression on the body of the vessel. Finally, the pot was soaked in order to remove the paper and could then either be sold or passed to a painter who would add colour to the design.

Copperplates used for engraving pottery transfer sheets can be distinguished from normal printing plates because the image, particularly the text, did not have to be engraved back-to-front. This was because image was pressed onto the inked underside of the wet paper, which was then lifted, placed onto the vessel and rubbed from the reverse side, meaning that it remained the right way around. This presumably made the whole task a lot quicker, easier and cheaper to accomplish than with conventional copperplate etching.

This plate, which is coming up at auction in the next couple of weeks, was used to print the text which appeared on the obverse of jugs carrying the Independence design. I have included a image of a creamware jug carrying the design on the right and you can read more about this object HERE.

 

Bilston Enamel Box c.1786

On 2nd August 1786, George III was alighting from his carriage outside St James’s Palace when a poor woman dashed towards him holding out a piece of paper. As he reached out to take the paper, which he assumed to be a petition of some kind, the woman lunged at him with a large table-knife she had concealed in her other hand. The knife had sharp edges but a blunt point and it failed to penetrate the king’s topcoat. She was quickly seized but the king shouted out: “the poor creature is mad, do not hurt her. She has not harmed me.” Upon which, the would-be regicide was led away quietly.

The lady’s name was Margret Nicholson, a former maidservant who had fallen on hard times and apparently drifted into insanity, eventually believing that she was the rightful queen of England and George and a usurping impostor. She was immediately certified insane and committed to the ‘incurables’ ward of Bethlem Royal Hospital, colloquially known as ‘Bedlam’, where she would remain for the rest of her life.

The incident proved to be something of a propaganda coup for the royal family and spawned a wave commemorative prints and other commercial tat with which loyal subjects could demonstrate their thanks for the king’s deliverance. This enamel box was probably manufactured in the West Midland’s town of Bilston, which was then the centre of the English enamel trade. It measures 2.5 cm, 3.5 cm wide and 5 cm deep and consists of a pink enamel body and hinged lid decorated with a (sadly slightly damaged) image of Margaret Nicholson’s attack.

The Up Shut or Bonny-Fire

This interesting creamware jug caught my eye whilst browsing through some auction catalogues this week.

It’s 15cm high and probably dates to circa 1815. The body is decorated with two transfer-printed designs. The first and most substantial of these is a caricature entitled The Up Shut or Bonny-Fire. It depicts Napoleon, bound and gagged, hanging from a gallows above a pile of combustible materials to which John Bull is about to set light. The following text has been crudely etched into a speech bubble above John’s head:

Fore George! You’ve quieten’d him, He’s made a stir in’t world long enough, now’s my turn. I’ll stir him when my fire lights. 

Whilst most satirical designs which appear on creamware during this period were copied from printed caricatures, I’ve been unable to identify a source print for this image. Therefore, I can only assume it’s either an original image created by the potter, or that it has been copied from a print which has subsequently been lost to history.

In contrast to the scene of gleeful immolation displayed on this side of the pot, the obverse is decorated with a nice bunch of flowers.