Period: Regency
Maker: New Hall Porcelain Works
The ‘Mother and Child’ bat prints on this New Hall part tea set offer a tantalising glimpse into the Regency world of Jane Austen. The part set comprises a large tea plate, a creamer/milk jug, three teacups, two coffee cans and one saucer.
The intimate domestic scenes come from a series of sentimental watercolours and engravings made between 1807 and 1808 by Adam Buck, a fashionable painter. He was much influenced by ancient Greek art. The mother is dressed in in flowing Greek-style gowns of muslin. On the large tea plate, she is depicted drawing her child. On other pieces, she is seated on a Regency chair, shaped like the ancient Greek klismos, with the child on her knee in front of a writing desk, helping him ride a rocking horse or play a harp, or either putting on, or removing, a harness to a toy chariot, on which the child is seated with a whip in one hand. On the saucer, they are seen playing on a Regency couch inspired by the ancient Greek kline. The back of one coffee can has a reminder of our mortality, an image of an old man with a stick, struggling to stand up beside a leafless tree.
The images are bat-printed in black. This process involved oiling a copper plate engraving, and then transferring the sticky oil pattern to the glazed porcelain with a pliable pad of glue or gelatin called a ‘bat.’ Powdered enamel for colouring was then applied to the sticky pattern, using cotton wool, and the porcelain then fired in an enamel kiln.
The New Hall pattern number, 1109, is painted on the bottoms of the tea plate and creamer. The pattern was introduced around 1815-20.
Condition Overall-very good/good. The two coffee cans are in excellent order. One teacup has a hairline crack, another has a couple of fine scratches, the third teacup is in excellent condition. The tea plate and saucer have surface abrasions. Other imperfections are from manufacture, including kiln dust and other impurities in the glaze. The rim of the saucer has a small firing flaw at 5 o’clock position, and the large plate has a surface porcelain tear at about 9 o’clock, into which black enamel has seeped (see photos).
Plate diameter: 21.3 cm
Saucer diameter: 14 cm
Teacups height: 5.8 cm; diameter: 8.3 cm; width, including handle: 10 cm
Coffee cans height: 5.8 cm & 6.1 cm; diameter: 6.3 cm & 6.5 cm; width, incl. handle: 8.4 cm & 8.6 cm
Creamer length, across handle and spout: 14.8 cm; height: 9.6 cm
Net weight: 1065 g
Medium: Hard-paste porcelain
Origin: Stoke-on-Trent, England
