Jabez Aston was one of Coalport’s principal artists in the 19th Century. His forte was the naturalistic painting fruit, usually as the centre of a design.

“Aston’s painting was almost aggressively English in mood, although far from lacking subtlety, either in the gradation of colour or in the application of lights. His work has always been highly regarded by the discriminating,” Michael Messenger wrote in his book on Coalport[i].

Aston was born in Ironbridge, near Coalport, in about 1799 and seems to have spent his entire working life at the Coalport factory. His name first appears in the Coalport pattern book for 1831 and is still described as an “artist” in the local census for 1871.

Cotswold Antiques has two stylish Coalport dessert plates decorated by Aston, one with a painting of grapes and the other of pears and dating from around 1858. The border is formed from a chain of near ovals in the pink ground colour that was Coalport’s recreation of the celebrated fond rose Sèvres had introduced a century earlier.

© Cotswold Antiques, 2018

[i] Michael Messenger, Coalport 1796-1926 (Antique Collectors’ Club, 1995)