Period: Regency
Maker: James & Ralph Clews
This delightful Empire-shape teacup and saucer by James and Ralph Clews is hand-painted with farming scenes. The recessed well of the saucer shows a farmer dressed in yellow smock, wide-brimmed hat and breeches, seated on a bale of straw. The cup bottom is painted with a farming woman, wearing an apron and bonnet and carrying a rake over her shoulder. The elaborately decorated border is in the Clews ‘841 pattern.’
Condition is excellent.
James and Ralph Clews were active for less than two decades, from about 1815 to 1834, at a pottery in Cobridge, a village in what is now Stoke-on-Trent. Their porcelain production was even shorter, from about 1821 to 1825.
The Clews brothers specialized in blue transfer-printed earthenware, and served mainly the American and Russian markets, styling themselves ‘Potters to her Imperial Majesty, the Empress of all the Russians.’ Popular subjects were ‘Zoological Gardens,’ ‘American Views’ and their ‘Doctor Syntax’ series.
Clews porcelains are much less well known, probably because they were unmarked. Many are in their 841 pattern, of which other versions of appear on 19th Century porcelains of many other British makers. The pattern’s basic elements, according to Michael Berthoud, are “a deeply scalloped blue border containing roughly rectangular yellow panels containing a gilt flower or anthemion.” There is also a ‘melting’ inner edge.
The 841 pattern and its imitators tend to have painted scenes in the centre. These may be rustic figures, scenes from Dr. Syntax or Don Quixote, or occasionally, with some other factories, sprays of enamelled flowers instead of figures.
Condition. Excellent, probably unused, and almost mint. The only wear is from stacking the saucer, along the inner edge of the border.
Cup height: 7 cm; rim diameter: 10.8 cm; width, including handle: 11.3 cm Saucer diameter: 15 cm
Weight: 281g
Medium: Bone china (porcelain)
Origin: Stoke-on-Trent, England
