Chelsea porcelain factory in the context of "Soho"

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⭐ Core Definition: Chelsea porcelain factory

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.

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Chelsea porcelain factory in the context of Bocage

Bocage (UK: /bəˈkɑːʒ/, US: /ˈbkɑːʒ/ BOH-kahzh) is a terrain of mixed woodland and pasture characteristic of parts of northern France, southern England, Ireland, the Netherlands, northern Spain and northern Germany, in regions where pastoral farming is the dominant land use.

Bocage may also refer to a small forest, a decorative element of leaves, or a type of rubble-work, comparable with the English use of "rustic" in relation to garden ornamentation. In the decorative arts, especially porcelain, it refers to a leafy screen spreading above and behind figures. Though found on continental figures, it is something of an English speciality, beginning in the mid-18th century, especially in Chelsea porcelain, and later spreading to more downmarket Staffordshire pottery figures.

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Chelsea porcelain factory in the context of William Duesbury

William Duesbury (1725–1786) was an English enameller, in the sense of a painter of porcelain, who became an important porcelain entrepreneur, founder of the Royal Crown Derby and owner of porcelain factories at Bow, Chelsea, Derby and Longton Hall.

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Chelsea porcelain factory in the context of Bow porcelain factory

The Bow porcelain factory (active c. 1747–64 and closed in 1776) was an emulative rival of the Chelsea porcelain factory in the manufacture of early soft-paste porcelain in Great Britain. The two London factories were the first in England. It was originally located near Bow, in what is now the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, but by 1749 it had moved to "New Canton", sited east of the River Lea, and then in Essex, now in the London Borough of Newham.

Designs imitated imported Chinese and Japanese porcelains and the wares being produced at Chelsea, at the other end of London. From about 1753, Meissen figures were copied, both directly and indirectly through Chelsea. Quality was notoriously uneven; the warm, creamy body of Bow porcelains is glassy and the glaze tends towards ivory. The paste included bone ash, and Bow figures were made by pressing the paste into moulds, rather than the slipcasting used at Chelsea. Bow appears to have been the largest English factory of its period. After about 1760, quality declined, as more English factories opened, and the dependence on Chelsea models increased, perhaps aided by an influx of Chelsea workers after 1763, as production there decreased.

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