Lowestoft Porcelain Factory

{{Short description|English porcelain factory in operation 1757-1802}}

The Lowestoft Porcelain Factory was a soft-paste porcelain factory on Crown Street (then Bell Lane) in Lowestoft, Suffolk, England, which was active from 1757 to 1802.On the traditional account. See Honey, 199. Godden, 121–122, 126–130 is not so sure, but 1760 to 1800 seems a minimal estimate of the years of actual production. It mostly produced "useful wares" such as pots, teapots, and jugs, with shapes copied from silverwork or from Bow and Worcester porcelain.[http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/350017/Lowestoft-porcelain Lowestoft porcelain], Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 2014-11-30. The factory, built on the site of an existing pottery or brick kiln, was later used as a brewery and malt kiln. Most of its remaining buildings were demolished in 1955.[http://www.heritagegateway.org.uk/Gateway/Results_Single.aspx?uid=MSF18195&resourceID=1017 Lowestoft Porcelain Factory, kilns etc.], Heritage Gateway. Retrieved 2011-05-05

Lowestoft collectors divide the factory's products into three distinct periods: Early Lowestoft c. 1756 – c. 1761, Middle-Period c. 1761 – c. 1768 and Late-Period c. 1768 to factory closure in 1802.[http://www.rgreen.org.uk/L5.html Today – a phoenix from the ashes!], Lowestoft Porcelain index. Retrieved 2011-04-21. All told, the factory was in production for longer than any English soft-paste porcelain producer other than Royal Worcester and Royal Crown Derby. Geographically, it was isolated from other porcelain factories, or indeed makers of fine earthenware, which probably accounts for a relatively slow-moving stylistic development. It was also relatively small, with a maximum workforce of about 70. Nonetheless, it survived longer than the average English factory, perhaps because it had less competition in the local market.Battie, 133–134; Honey, 208; Godden, 130 The factory produced experimental wares in about 1756 and first advertised their porcelain in 1760. Although Lowestoft probably sold mainly to the local East Anglian market, by 1770 it had a warehouse, effectively a shop, in Cheapside, London.Honey, 199; Advertisement of March 17th, 1770: "Clark Durnford, Lowestoft China Warehouse, No 4 Great St. St Thomas the Apostle, Queen St, Cheapside, London, where merchants and shopkeepers may be supplied with any quantity of the said ware at the usual prices. NB - Allowance of Twenty per cent for Ready Money. Robert Browne & Co, China Manufactory, Lowestoft, Suffolk"

File:Teapot MET DP-975-001 (cropped).jpg

During the early period wares decorated with Chinese-inspired scenes in underglaze blue were produced. This type of decoration continued to form the majority of production throughout the life of the factory but scenes were gradually simplified. Overglaze colours in enamel were used from about 1768, generally in white and blue or in a polychrome that utilizes a bright brick red.[http://www.edp24.co.uk/norfolk-life/village-guide/lowestoft_1_213647 Lowestoft] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110610221151/http://www.edp24.co.uk/norfolk-life/village-guide/lowestoft_1_213647 |date=10 June 2011 }}, Eastern Daily Press, 2010-04-14. Retrieved 2011-05-11. After 1770 transfer printing was used. Some figures were made, mostly in the 1780s, of musicians, putti, and animals, but these are all rare.Battie, 133; Godden, 125; Honey, 208–210

The Lowestoft body paste contained bone ash, and is similar to that of Bow; probably a former worker at Bow was employed when the factory began. Occasionally there can be difficulties telling the two apart, usually with blue and white pieces.Honey, 199 The quality of the porcelain is not the highest, especially after 1770, but even the less polished pieces have "the appealling simplicity of folk art",Battie, 134 and the high proportion of commemorative pieces, inscribed for people, places or occasions, add to their interest.Honey, 208 Many such documentary pieces are dated which, together with the wasters excavated at the site in 1902 and 1967, has helped to build up a good picture of the factory's products.Honey, 200

Common types

File:Tea caddy MET DP-946-004 (cropped).jpg decoration, c. 1760]]

Many pieces are in a pattern, itself derived from Chinese models, known as "Redgrave" (after a family with several workers at the factory), with paeonies and rocks.Honey, 204, 206; Godden, 121, 125 This exists in several types, some with their own names such as "House pattern" and "Two-Bird pattern". Most combined underglaze blue with overglaze enamel decoration, as Chinese porcelain sometimes does.Godden, 125, 127

Another group is called "Hughes-type", after James Hughes, a modeller. Most of the surface has moulded low relief with small and rather vague plant shapes, leaves and garlands. Areas left with a flat surface are painted in underglaze blue in a Chinese style, typically a circular or oval space in the centre of the sides, where landscape scenes are painted, and borders at top and perhaps bottom, painted with floral or geometric motifs. These are mostly dated to the first decade or so of the factory.Godden, 125

The outstanding painter of the factory, active in the 1770s, is known only as the "Tulip Painter". His distinctive pieces feature "bold, powerfully painted flower sprays, featuring prominently a large tulip".Godden, 125

File:Inkstand MET 120253.jpg

Lowestoft has a higher proportion than most factories of "documentary" pieces bearing dates, names of owners, or other inscriptions, for "farmers' celebrations, elections, weddings, and the like".Honey, 208 More than 200 dated pieces are known.Battie, 133 There is a class of "birthday plaques", with a name and date.Honey, 208

The words A Trifle from Lowestoft (or other places in East Anglia), are painted on small items. These evidently functioned as souvenirs in these early days of tourism in England. Lowestoft was becoming a seaside resort, and two visitors have left accounts showing that the well-off were encouraged to see over the factory and buy. In 1772 a doctor on a day trip from Yarmouth with friends put in his diary: "After dinner visited the china manufactory carried on there. Most of it is rather ordinary. The Painting branch is done by women...".Godden, 123. This is Dr Silas Neville. In 1777 a Thomas Wale and friends "saw the china ware fabrick, etc, and all of us bought some of it. Saw ye hanging gardens, and ye fine prospect of ye sea. Excellent bathing-machines, etc. ....".Godden, 123

So-called "Oriental Lowestoft"

File:Illustrated catalogue of the valuable private collection of beautiful old English china and lustre ware including a remarkable series of tea sets, historical blue and white plates and platters and (14783923095).jpg

A persistent "notorious mistake" in several editions of a standard book by the Victorian expert William Chaffers allocated to Lowestoft types of Chinese export porcelain that had been produced in large quantities (far more than the small Lowestoft factory could have made). There were in fact some Chinese imitations (in hard-paste porcelain) of Lowestoft porcelain shipped out to China by the British East India Company.Honey, 198; Godden, 121, 125 It is also possible that some Chinese "blanks" were given overglaze decoration in Lowestoft. A Robert Allen, first a painter at the factory and later the manager from c. 1780, also had his own workshop in the town where he decorated pieces "in the white" from elsewhere.Honey, 199 The Chinese pieces may still be called "Chinese Lowestoft",Godden, 121 or "Oriental Lowestoft" in the United States.

Business history

File:Coffeepot, panels in Kakiemon taste, England, Lowestoft, c. 1768-1770, soft-paste porcelain - California Palace of the Legion of Honor - DSC07686.JPG taste, c. 1768–1770]]

The start of the factory is somewhat unclear. Robert Browne (d. 1771) was the manager, with other partners, of which Philip Walker (d. 1803) was the most senior. Walker seems to have had (by 1760) kilns making tiles and earthenware, and Browne may have been a chemist. Two other partners, Obed Aldred and John Richman (d. 1771) were probably "non-executives", who provided capital. Apprentices were being taken on by June 1760, indentured to Browne.Godden, 122

By 1770 the company name was "Robert Browne and Company".Honey, 199 When Robert Browne died in 1771 he was succeeded as manager by his son of the same name, who introduced, or increased the amount of, polychrome overglaze enamelling.Godden, 125 Although traditional sources date the end of the factory to 1802 or 1803, Geoffrey Godden concluded that the factory had ceased production by 1800, after some key employees are recorded working at Worcester porcelain. He believed production had been running down from about 1795, as competition from Staffordshire pottery, both in fine earthenware and bone china, grew. A letter from the son of the younger Robert Browne, recalling his father's view, explains the closure: "they could not produce the wares so cheaply as the Staffordshire potters, and that they were getting old and wished to retire from the business, not from want of capital, as they were all wealthy men for the period...".Godden, 128–130

Marks and collections

Lowestoft has no factory mark of its own, though the inscribed documentary pieces and "trifles" can be useful for identification. Some pieces used the marks of Meissen or Worcester; the excavation of "wasters" at the kiln site with these has put the matter beyond doubt.Honey, 199–203, 208 Lowestoft porcelain is part of the permanent collections at many institutions, including the Victoria and Albert Museum in London,[https://collections.vam.ac.uk/search/?q=Lowestoft%20porcelain V&A, 385 images online] the museum in Nicholas Everett Park, Oulton Broad,{{Cite web|title=Lowestoft Museum - The Association for Suffolk Museums %|url=https://suffolkmuseums.org/museums/lowestoft-museum/|access-date=2021-06-07|website=The Association for Suffolk Museums|language=en-GB}} at the Castle Museum, Norwich,{{Cite web|title=Object: Lowestoft porcelain bottle ewer (bottle)|url=http://norfolkmuseumscollections.org/collections/objects/object-3958442699.html|access-date=2021-06-07|website=norfolkmuseumscollections.org}} the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge,[http://webapps.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/explorer/index.php?do=Search&qu=Prometheus%20chained%20to%20the%20rocks%20of%20Caucasus&fi=%7B%22term%22%3A%7B%22Maker.asterm%22%3A%22Lowestoft+Porcelain+Factory%22%7D%7D Collections Explorer], Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. Retrieved 2017-07-15. the British Museum,{{Cite web|title=Collections Online {{!}} British Museum|url=https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/term/BIOG74020|access-date=2021-06-07|website=www.britishmuseum.org}} the Museum of Applied Arts & Sciences,{{Cite web|title=Porcelain saucer made by Lowestoft|url=https://collection.maas.museum/object/174132|access-date=2021-06-07|website=collection.maas.museum|language=en}} the Philadelphia Museum of Art,{{Cite web|title=Tea Cup|url=https://philamuseum.org/collection/object/131664|access-date=2021-06-07|website=philamuseum.org|language=en}} the University of Michigan Museum of Art,{{Cite web|title=Exchange: Lowestoft (Export Porcelain Urn)|url=https://exchange.umma.umich.edu/resources/11015/view|access-date=2021-06-07|website=exchange.umma.umich.edu}} the Harvard Art Museums,{{Cite web|last=Harvard|title=From the Harvard Art Museums' collections Lowestoft China Cup|url=https://harvardartmuseums.org/collections/object/230538|access-date=2021-06-07|website=harvardartmuseums.org|language=en}} the Birmingham Museum of Art,{{Cite web|title=Cream Jug {{!}} Birmingham Museum of Art|url=https://www.artsbma.org/collection/cream-jug-5/|access-date=2021-06-07|language=en-US}} the Brooklyn Museum,{{Cite web|title=Brooklyn Museum|url=https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/opencollection/artists/2813/objects|access-date=2021-06-07|website=www.brooklynmuseum.org}} the Clark Art Institute,{{Cite web|title=Teapot and Cover|url=https://www.clarkart.edu/artpiece/detail/teapot-and-cover-(14)|access-date=2021-06-07|website=www.clarkart.edu}} Colonial Williamsburg,{{Cite web|title=Jug|url=https://emuseum.history.org/objects/11089/jug|access-date=2021-06-07|website=emuseum.history.org|language=en}} and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.{{Cite web|title=Lowestoft Porcelain Factory|url=https://emuseum.mfah.org/people/3197/lowestoft-porcelain-factory/objects}}

Although small ordinary pieces can still be relatively cheap (from £100 up), the highest prices are fetched by the few pieces with paintings of local scenes around the town. A flask with a ship-building scene on Lowestoft beach fetched £24,000 in 2010, and in 2011 another piece with local scenes made the record price at £30,000.Crane

File:Teapot, attributed to Lowestoft Porcelain Factory, Lowestoft, England, c. 1765, soft-paste porcelain - Brooklyn Museum - DSC09116.JPG|Teapot, attributed to Lowestoft, c. 1765

File:VA23Oct10 148.jpg|Jug showing a game of cricket, 1769–1770[https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O337039/jug-lowestoft-porcelain-factory/ V&A page]

File:Tea bowl (AM 1962.44-2).jpg|Tea bowl, c. 1770, Redgrave type, combining underglaze blue with overglaze decoration, and touches of gilding

File:Tea bowl (AM 1962.44-3) (cropped).jpg|Another bowl from the set

File:Sugar bowl (?) (part of a service) MET 188204.jpg|Sugar bowl from a service in Chinese style

File:Cream pitcher (part of a service) MET 188203.jpg|Jug from the same service

File:Jug (AM 1968.70-1).jpg|Jug

File:Child MET 149260.jpg|Figure of a putto or child

Notes

References

Battie, David, ed., Sotheby's Concise Encyclopedia of Porcelain, 1990, Conran Octopus. {{ISBN|1850292515}}
Crane, Anne, [https://www.antiquestradegazette.com/guides/collecting-guides/lowestoft-porcelain/ "Lowestoft Porcelain"], Antiques Trade Gazette, accessed October 2018
Godden, Geoffrey, English China, 1985, Barrie & Jenkins, {{ISBN|0091583004}}
Honey, W.B., Old English Porcelain, 1977 (3rd edn.), Faber and Faber, {{ISBN|0571049028}}