Bocage in the context of "Ceramic art"

Chelsea porcelain is the porcelain made by the Chelsea porcelain manufactory, the first important porcelain manufactory in England, established around 1743–45, and operating independently until 1770, when it was merged with Derby porcelain. It made soft-paste porcelain throughout its history, though there were several changes in the "body" material and glaze used. Its wares were aimed at a luxury market, and its site in Chelsea, London, was close to the fashionable Ranelagh Gardens pleasure ground, opened in 1742.

The first known wares are the "goat and bee" cream jugs with seated goats at the base, some examples of which are incised with "Chelsea", "1745" and a triangle. The entrepreneurial director, at least from 1750, was Nicholas Sprimont, a Huguenot silversmith in Soho, but few private documents survive to aid a picture of the factory's history. Early tablewares, being produced in profusion by 1750, depend on Meissen porcelain models and on silverware prototypes, such as salt cellars in the form of realistic shells.

A dispersed settlement, also known as a scattered settlement, is one of the main types of settlement patterns used by landscape historians to classify rural settlements found in England and other parts of the world. Typically, there are a number of separate farmsteads scattered throughout the area. A dispersed settlement contrasts with a nucleated village.

The French term bocage is sometimes used to describe the type of landscape found where dispersed settlements are common.

The Battle for Caen (June to August 1944) was a military engagement between the British Second Army and the German Panzergruppe West in the Second World War for control of the city of Caen and its vicinity during the Battle of Normandy. Caen is about 9 mi (14 km) inland from the Calvados coast astride the Orne River and Caen Canal, at the junction of several roads and railways. The communication links made it an important operational objective for both sides. Caen and the area to its south are flatter and more open when compared to the bocage country of western Normandy, and Allied air force commanders wanted the area captured quickly in order to construct airfields to base more aircraft in France proper.

The British 3rd Infantry Division was to seize Caen on D-Day or alternatively, dig in short of the city. Caen, Bayeux and Carentan were not captured on D-Day, and the Allies concentrated on linking the beachheads. British and Canadian forces captured the area of Caen north of the Orne during Operation Charnwood (8–9 July), while the suburbs south of the river were captured by the II Canadian Corps during Operation Atlantic (18–20 July). The fighting was mutually costly, and greatly deprived the Germans of the means to reinforce the western part of the invasion front.

The pew group is a rare type of pottery Staffordshire figure, apparently made only in the 1740s. Typically it has two or three "rigidly posed" figures sitting on a high-backed bench, often with a woman in the centre; great attention is paid to details of hair and clothing. The setting is not church, as the usual name suggests, but a comfortable home or inn, where high-backed settles (protecting from draughts) were a common piece of furniture. Details are picked out in dark brown or black glaze, and dogs and musical instruments may be depicted, or the gentlemen may be taking snuff.

The two most elaborate group subjects in Staffordshire figures were the "arbour group", with two lovers seated in front of a bocage of foliage, and the pew group. The arbour group is a simplification of porcelain groups, whereas the pew group is more original to Staffordshire. Both types are "flatbacks", plain at the rear, as they were designed to be placed against a wall. The figures in arbour groups were already mostly moulded, but the pew groups were shaped and constructed individually, from rolled and moulded pieces of clays, with much use of "slabs" rolled flat. Despite the sculptural quality given by the contrast of thin sheets and round forms, this technique was not used for later figures.