1 a, b A soft-paste porcelain Caughley dessert plate (and detail view), one of a pair, previously unknown before 2014. Decorated by Fidelle Duvivier in 1792 while he briefly worked for the Chamberlain decorating establishment in Worcester (see also 2 a, b). Diameter 25.5 cm. Private collection. Photos: Kalin Krumov and the owner. (See previous blogpost for a Caughley tea and coffee service Duvivier decorated while working for the Chamberlains).
2 a, b A maritime scene painted by Duvivier on the second Caughley plate, with a detail view.(i)
Both Caughley plates have center panels encircled by fine foliate gilding while on the edges we see the so-called “L’ Amité” border with gilded rims, which appears on other teasets and services decorated at the Chamberlains’ factory in Worcester around this time.(ii)
In this decoration we can find familiar subject matter and motifs that Duvivier had used for at least a ten-year period – both on New Hall porcelain (c. 1785-90), and on Loosdrecht porcelain made at that Dutch manufactory on the Vecht River, where he was employed from c. 1780 until 1784, just before he returned to England and settled in Staffordshire.
The three Loosdrecht examples below (3, 4, 5) attest to his talent for composing delicate scenes framed with vegetation – whether in soft colors, such as puce monochrome or sepia monochrome. These maritime subjects, understandably, would have had special appeal for the Dutch public.
3 A Loosdrecht porcelain sugar bowl and cover, with gilding, c. 1783, painted with figures and a river scene in polychrome by Duvivier. Height 11 cm. Part of an unpublished tea and coffee service in the collection of the B.C. Koekkoek-Haus, Kleve, Germany.
4 A detail from a Loosdrecht broth (or waste) bowl decorated in purple camaïeu with three landscape scenes and gilding by Duvivier, c. 1783. Diameter 19 cm. (Sold at Christie’s, Amsterdam, on 19 December 2007, lot 46).
5 (below) A Loosdrecht porcelain ribbed bowl with a landscape decoration in sepia by Duvivier, c. 1783. Height 10 cm, diameter 19.7 cm. Private collection.
5
The last photos (6, 7) feature the center details of two pieces belonging to an important documented New Hall porcelain dessert service decorated by Duvivier in polychrome. This extensive 25-piece service was first described by New Hall expert David Holgate in 1998, the year in which it was sold (in 14 lots) by auctioneers Finan Watkin & Co. in Mere, Wiltshire.(iii) Describing the service in his monograph, New Hall Porcelain (2004), Geoffrey Godden included numerous photos of the decorations, which he believed to “show Staffordshire real life scenes known to the artist.”(iv) These softly painted scenes with houses, windmills, pottery buildings and kilns (some smoking), are enlivened with added animals, or figures often conversing in groups.
6 Detail landscape scene painted on a shell-shaped side dish. Photo: Olivia Horsfall Turner
Godden also relates that this dessert service was made between 1787 and 1790 for John Daniel (1756-1821), the bachelor New Hall manager and a partner in the firm. Some years after his death it had been bought by a Mr. Gray of Hanley, who was still the owner in 1863 when the author-illustrator Llewellynn Jewitt came to call on the gentleman and saw it. Jewitt greatly praised the service in an article, “New Hall China,” which appeared in the January issue of the Art Journal the following year, along with an engraved illustration of one dish he had first carefully sketched.(v)
Until its sale in 1998 this New Hall dessert service was the only one known to have been preserved in a near complete state. Godden wrote, “Duvivier must have painted other interesting dessert services. I know of parts of at least four. While his employment at New Hall was terminated in 1790, he may have painted some special commissions at a slightly later period.”(vi)
The experience gained at New Hall would indeed have stood him in good stead when he was tasked with decorating that dessert service for the Chamberlains in 1792.
7 A detail of one of twelve plates belonging to the New Hall porcelain dessert service made for factory manager, John Daniels.(vii) Photo: Bonhams
NOTES
(i) Image 2 a was first published in Charlotte Jacob-Hanson, In the Footsteps of Fidelle Duvivier (2016), p. 58, no. 64.
(ii) A Caughley trio of a coffee cup, teabowl and saucer, c. 1790, “of rare spirally fluted or ‘shanked’ shape, painted with small coloured landscape panels and foliate wreath borders” (the L’ Amitié border) was auctioned at Bonhams in Knowle, England, on 20 Oct. 2009 (lot 258). The decorator was identified as John Muchall.
(iii) David Holgate, “A New Hall Dessert Service,” Northern Ceramic Society Journal, vol. 15 (1998), pp. 47-54.
(iv) Geoffrey Godden, New Hall Porcelains (Woodbridge, Suffolk: Antique Collectors’ Club, 2004), frontispiece and pp. 24, 40-44, 159, 169-172, 257-261, 264 (this quote on p. 257 with a picture of the whole service). Godden also includes a wealth of information on the history and organization of the manufactory, plus a chapter on “Fidelle Duvivier and other Decorators.”
(v) Godden, op. cit. (2004), pp. 168-169 (and a detail of Image 6 is shown on p. 170).
(vi) Geoffrey A. Godden, “New Hall Porcelains c. 1782-1835,” International Ceramic Fair and Seminar Handbook, June 2003, pp. 32-42. (available online at this link:
https://static1.squarespace.com/static/58dbc83f893fc01cfcc43356/t/58ecf5a529687f61a5ed0878/1491924392049/icfs2003-new-hall-porcelains.pdf )
(vii) Two dessert plates were auctioned by Bonhams, London, in sale 24621 (Fine Glass and British Ceramics) on 2 May 2018, lots 353 and 354. See https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/24621/lot/353/?category=list
Wunderschön anzuschauen und bewundernswert, mit welcher Geduld und Akribie du forschst. Chapeau