INDUSTRIES 



pride of Sevres, appears in a Chelsea catalogue 

 of 1771. These colours were enamelled that 

 is applied over the fired glaze differing from 

 the blue under-glaze of the earlier period. 

 The gilding of the latter period is far superior 

 to that of any other contemporary English 

 porcelain, but came at last to be so lavishly 

 used as to destroy all artistic effect. The 

 style of decoration was entirely altered ; 

 instead of the simple use of flowers, birds or 

 insects, carelessly thrown over their surface, 

 the pieces of this later period are richly decor- 

 ated with brilliant colours, ambitious paintings 

 and excessive gildings. The form of the 

 pieces also underwent a change. Large and 

 elaborate vases in extravagant rococo style, 

 but exhibiting the highest technical skill, were 

 produced in great numbers, and the subjects 

 painted on their panels now owed their entire 

 inspiration to the school of Watteau, Boucher, 

 and other French artists. The statuettes of 

 this later period were larger and more impor- 

 tant than the earlier works, and many of them 

 were modelled by Roubiliac, who lived in 

 England from 1744 to 1762. Some of his 

 works have an R impressed on the paste, but 



many are not so distinguished. The following 

 may safely be considered as from his design : 

 'The Music Lesson' in the Victoria and Albert 

 Museum ; ' Shakespeare ' ; ' Apollo and the 

 Muses' ; 'The Four Seasons'; and a group 

 of a man playing a hurdy-gurdy and a lady 

 teaching a dog to dance. 



The use of raised flowers grew in this 

 later period to an extraordinary excess. This 

 form of decoration began with festoons and 

 wreaths of flowers on the shoulders of vases or 

 hanging down their sides ; then little figures 

 were made in combination with flowers and 

 foliage ; and finally elaborate boscage pieces 

 were produced, of which 'The Music Lesson ' 

 is an excellent example. The earliest mark 

 of Chelsea ware was an incised triangle, but 

 this is seldom found and may have been only 

 a workman's mark. The most general Chel- 

 sea mark is an anchor. In its earliest form 

 the anchor is found in low relief upon an 

 embossed ground. At a later date the anchor 

 was drawn by the enameller or gilder, usually 

 in red, but also in purple and sometimes in 

 gilt ; occasionally in later pieces two gold 

 anchors occur side by side. 



GLASS 



One of the earliest known references to the 

 purchase of glass in Middlesex is contained in 

 a writ issued by Edward III, dated 28 March 

 I35O. 1 It recites that John de Lincoln, 

 master for the works in the King's Chapel in 

 the Palace of Westminster, and John Geddyng 

 had been appointed jointly and severally to 

 provide, procure, and buy in the counties of 

 Surrey, Sussex, Kent, Middlesex [and twenty- 

 three others], in the most convenient places, 

 as much glass as should be necessary for the 

 said chapel ; '.and also to provide workmen, 

 glaziers, &c. A similar writ dated 20 March 

 1 35 1 'gives the like commission to John de 

 Bampton and John de Geddyng. The ex- 

 pense rolls give full details of the wages paid 

 to the glaziers and other workmen from 

 2O June 25 Edw. Ill, to 5 December 26 

 Edw. III. 3 Master John de Chester was paid 

 7*. a week for working on the drawings of 

 several images for the glass windows, and was 

 assisted by five master glaziers working on 

 similar drawings at is. a day each. Other 

 painters on glass received "jd. a day each, 

 glaziers who cut and joined glass for the 



' Pat. 24 Edw. Ill, pt. i, m. 26 d. 



' Abbrev. Rot. Orig. (Rec. Com.), ii, 2 1 ib. 



' J. T. Smith, jtntiy. ofWtstm. (1807), 191-6. 



windows were paid 6d. a day, and workmen 

 who were apparently labourers had 4^. or 4^. 

 a day. Thomas de Dadyngton and Robert 

 Yerdesle, who ground the colours, were also 

 paid at the rate of 4^. ; and white, blue, 

 azure, and red glass was bought by the 

 ' pondus ' and conveyed from London to 

 Westminster. Other examples of window- 

 glass both pictorial and heraldic in religious 

 and secular buildings throughout the country 

 show how great an advance had been made 

 by this art in England by the middle of the 

 1 4th century. 



We meet with some interesting informa- 

 tion concerning a Middlesex glass-house in 

 1447, when the executors of Richard de 

 Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, who died in 

 1439, were engaging the services of various 

 artificers for the construction of the magnifi- 

 cent Beauchamp Chapel in St. Mary's Church, 

 Warwick, as a last resting-place for the earl. 

 The contract for glazing the windows was 

 assigned to a Westminster glazier in the 

 following terms : 4 



John Prudde of Westminster glasier, 23 Junii 

 25 H. 6, covenanteth &c. to glase all the windows 



4 Dugdale, Antif. ofWarw. (ed. 2, 1730), 446 



155 



