Silver, Ceramics and Glass

The Palladian, Rococo, Chinoiserie and Gothic styles inspired other craftsmen besides furniture-makers. The best silversmiths of the age, such as Paul de Lamerie, worked in all these styles. A salver might have restrained, Classical-style borders and a candlestick might represent a Classical column, while a basin and ewer might bear the shells and garlands of the Rococo. One dish might be engraved with Oriental figures and another be heavily chased with Gothic traceries.

Ceramics, and particularly the new ranges of European porcelain from Meissen and Sevres, also showed varying styles. After many abortive attempts, Johann Friedrich Botrger, an alchemist working in Meissen near Dresden, Germany, for the Elector of Saxony, devised a hard-paste porcelain to equal the translucent porcelain of China and Japan. A factory was set up which by r719 was making excellent pieces, among them vases, plates and tea services with superbly painted and gilded scenes. From about 173o, Meissen made figures of people, animals and pastoral scenes that embodied the Rococo vision.

Antique Collector MagazineMeanwhile, France had managed to develop only a soft-paste porcelain. In 1740 a factory was set up at Vincennes, moving to nearby Sevres in 1756; it produced very fine work, usually vases, plates and other such wares — rarely figures, except the renowned biscuit figures. British craftsmen were starting to make soft-paste porcelain but were far behind the skills of the German and French. The great English porcelain factories were soon established — set up by and for the merchant and middle classes. The Chelsea factory (1745.60 was noted particularly for its delightful figures and other factories were producing at Bow (1746-76), Derby (from 175o) and Worcester (from 1751).

Britain’s glass industry had now developed its own style — which European countries were copying. The tax by weight on English glass from 1745 encouraged makers to produce thinner glass, more suitable for engraving, which was in any case the most frequent method of decoration.

Drinking glasses tended to have conical or trumpet bowls, skilfully engraved and set on plain or baluster stems. The stems often contained either air bubbles or opaque glass rods formed into spring-like twists. A wide selection of other pieces were made, including little glasses for sweetmeats, jellies and custards, bowls and salvers, decanters and jugs. There was some shallow cutting — of faceted diamonds, for example — on glass chandeliers.

Dressing the Floors, Windows and Walls

There were well-made knotted carpets from Axminster, Kidderminster and Wilton, but they were more expensive than imported Oriental carpets. Many rooms had fitted carpets made of broad strips and a border sewn together; or floors might be painted or spread with ‘floorcloths’ of canvas painted with a design or simply with black and white squares.

In curtains, now more elaborate, the festoonwas the most popular form, but pairs of curtains drawn to the centre were becoming commoner. Popular fabrics were lightweight, with delicate Rococo designs printed by a new copperplate process.

Rich fabrics were still used to decorate walls. They were not broken up into panels as before but stretched across the whole wall, or at least down to the dado. Wooden panelling painted white, stone-colour or, sometimes, olive-green was also used.

Block-printed wallpapers were now much cheaper than textile hangings. Flock paper imitating Italian silk velvet was considered highly desirable. Papers with chiaro-oscuro(light and shade) effects imitated Classical niches with statues, and Rococo designs included medallions enclosing landscapes. Some designs with sprays of flowers on plain grounds were of a kind that is still popular.

Pictures of the Age

Paintings in gilded frames were increasingly a part of the decor, some of them collected on the Grand Tour. Family portraits were much in vogue, too, keeping popular artists such as Sir Joshua Reynolds busy. During a long career, Reynolds was eventually to paint some 2000 portraits, characteristically showing the sitters in their best light.

Quite a different style of painting came from William Hogarth — no flattery from him. He portrayed mercilessly the ills and absurdities of a London where crime, drunkenness, debauchery and disease were rife. This was an age in which many a lord made himself a beggar by his extravagance. Sir Robert Walpole (Prime Minister 1721-42) could spend more than £ 1200 on the trimmings for a state bedroom while the annual wage of a farm labourer was E30.

Early Georgian society was shot through with excesses for all its efforts at refinement. But refinement was coming, and was to be the hallmark of the late Georgian period.

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