Print of ‘An Emblematical Drawing of Large Proportions’ by Baron de Fages Vaumale
Size: 18 ¼ in (47cm) x 21 ¼ in (54cm) (See also the end papers for larger images)
The landscape and shipping vignettes on the borders of the service closely resemble sketches completed by Cooper Willyams (1762-1816) who served as chaplain in Swiftsure at the Battle of the Nile. Willyams’s drawings of his Voyage up the Mediterranean (see page 31) would be published in 1802 and, as an eyewitness account of the battle and its aftermath, proved an instant success. A copy of Willyam’s book was later found in Nelson’s library. It appears Nelson returned to England with this part of his ‘Birthday Service’ as a souvenir of his eventful stay in Naples. No other pieces from the service are known to survive. It was then used by Nelson as the pattern for his subsequent services known as the ‘Nelson set’, a dessert service of Paris porcelain and a tea service of Coalport decorated with Nelson’s arms; and his ‘Baltic Set’, a tea service and a dessert set in Paris porcelain, with a dinner set in creamware. Both these celebrated sets display the same oak-leaf border as the original Birthday Service, with the ‘Baltic Set’ also repeating the fouled anchor motif.
In 1802, following receipt of his ‘Baltic Set’, Nelson gifted the original ‘Birthday Service’ to his sister Catherine Matcham, sending it to her at Clifton in the care of their elderly father, the Reverend Edmund Nelson. On 14 February, she wrote a letter of thanks: ‘for the very elegant sett of china. Be assur’d, my dear brother, I need not this proof of your affection, or any present that money can bestow, although I shall, if possible, set a double value upon it, as I had considered it a present from our dear father.’ In the twentieth century, Catherine’s descendants loaned the service to the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich before selling it at Sotheby’s in 2005. Its recent reidentification as the precursor to all the other known sets now provides vivid contact with a critical moment in the Admiral’s life: in the aftermath of his great victory at the Nile, and at the outset of his affair with Emma, Lady Hamilton.
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