Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the Reeves Collection of Ceramics at Washington and Lee

50 TREASURES: Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the Reeves Collection of Ceramics at Washington and Lee University by RONALD W. FUCHS II

50 TREASURES: Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the Reeves Collection of Ceramics at Washington and Lee University by RONALD W. FUCHS II

Dedication To the past directors and curators of the Reeves Collection: JAMES W. WHITEHEAD THOMAS V. LITZENBURG, JR. PETER D. GROVER ANN T. (HOLLY) BAILEY

THE HISTORY OF THE REEVES COLLECTION

I

n the fall of 1963, a postcard from Euchlin Reeves, Washington and Lee Class of 1927 Law, found its way to James (Jim) W. Whitehead, Washington and Lee’s treasurer. It read, simply, “Someday I may wish to make a donation of a work of art to the university. Are you interested?”1

were among the first students to help unpack and catalog the Reeveses’ ceramics, an experience that helped guide them toward careers in the art world and to becoming supporters of the collection. “That is how I got interested in collecting Chinese export porcelain,” explained Perkins. “Jim Whitehead was The “work of art” in question such a dynamic person. He was in fact a collection of more was so enthusiastic about than 2,000 ceramics, including porcelain, it was contagious.”2 The collection has also grown Chinese export porcelain, British through purchases made possible earthenwares, and European by two endowments, one formed porcelain, that Reeves and his wife, Louise Herreshoff and Euchlin Reeves,

by Herbert McKay, Class of Louise Herreshoff, had assembled. about 1966.

1951, and the other by W. Groke Sensing its potential as a teaching Mickey, as well as by an independent entity, the tool, Whitehead built a friendship with the Reeveses Buddy Taub Foundation. that culminated in the gift of the collection to W&L in 1967.

At first, highlights from the collection were displayed around campus, in the Lee Chapel Museum, in In the 50 years since it arrived on campus, packed in Washington Hall, and in Lee House, the president’s more than 200 barrels, the collection has expanded residence. In the 1970s, as part of the nation’s and grown. It now contains more than 3,000 objects, bicentennial celebrations, parts of the collection ranging in age from 4,000-year-old Chinese pots to traveled to more than 50 museums and galleries contemporary bowls for the Japanese tea ceremony. throughout the United States. In 1978, highlights The strength of the collection, however, consists of from the collection were exhibited at the National Chinese and Japanese export porcelain — of which Museum of History in Taipei, Republic of China.3 the Reeves is one of the largest and most significant collections in the country — and British, Continental In 1982, the collection found a permanent home in European, and American earthenwares, stonewares, a Greek Revival house, one of four built in 1842 as and porcelains made between 1500 and 1900. faculty residences, on the historic front campus of W&L. Galleries for ceramics, along with a library and The collection has grown by gift and bequest, many work space, were created in the historic portion of the made by alumni of the university, some of whom structure, and the Elisabeth S. Gottwald Gallery was were exposed to ceramics through working with the added to house the paintings of Louise Herreshoff Reeves Collection as students, such as Bruce Perkins Reeves. “More than merely a building in which the and Peter Grover, both from the Class of 1973. They

The Reeves Center

collections can be displayed,” wrote the W&L alumni magazine about its 1982 dedication, “the Reeves Center will operate as a research facility in much the same manner as a rare books division of a library.”4

Chinese porcelain scholar David Sanctuary Howard, “it can continue to teach and inspire students both inside and outside the University in the finest tradition of liberal education.”6

Jim Whitehead was the first director of the Reeves.

In addition to bringing the collection to W&L and building its permanent home, he wrote A Fragile Union: The Story of Louise Herreshoff, a biography of the Reeveses. Tom Wolfe (W&L Class of 1951) declared of the book, “Dickens would have gladly died and gone to Heaven if only he could have written the story.”5

In 1993, Litzenburg oversaw the construction of the Watson Pavilion, behind the Reeves Center next to the Colonnade. Named in honor of Elizabeth Watson, the wife of William Watson, Class of 1929, the building serves as a separate wing of the Reeves, housing temporary and permanent displays of the collection, as well as a Japanese Tea Room.

Litzenburg also wrote Chinese Export Porcelain in the Reeves Center Collection at Washington and Lee University in collaboration with Ann T. (Holly) Bailey.

Whitehead retired in 1992, and Thomas V. Litzenburg, Jr., W&L Class of 1957, assumed the directorship of the Reeves. He continued to build the collection, filling many gaps and making it an even more useful teaching tool so that, in the words of the

In 2003, Peter D. Grover returned to the Reeves, serving as director until 2008, when he became the

director of University Collections of Art and History.

The new position coordinated the activities of Lee Chapel, the Reeves, and Washington and Lee’s fine arts collection, better integrating the collection into the curriculum.

In 2002, Holly Bailey became the associate director of the Reeves, and it was under her tenure that it acquired the David Sanctuary Howard Collection of Chinese Armorial Porcelain Coffee Cups, the largest addition to the Reeves Collection since its founding. Consisting of 600 coffee cups decorated with the coats of arms of English, Scottish, Irish, and British North American individuals, the collection illustrates the social, political, and economic world of the 18th century. Armorial porcelain “is a real window onto history,” explained Beverly M. DuBose III, Class of 1962, who, with Gerry Lenfest, Classes of 1953 and 1955 Law, bought the collection for the Reeves. A gallery to house it and other pieces of armorial porcelain opened in 2010. Bailey was also instrumental in the establishment of the W. Groke Mickey Acquisitions Fund, which has given the Reeves the ability to acquire a range of objects, especially Japanese export porcelain. She retired in 2006.7

In 2008, Ronald W. Fuchs II became the curator of the Reeves Collection. Since then, it has continued to grow, and in 2017, renovations to the Reeves Center updated the existing galleries, created a new gallery for Japanese export porcelain, and improved spaces for teaching. The collection is used in a range of classes across the curriculum, including archaeology, art history, chemistry, economics, German, history, politics, and even accounting. Professors and students use it to tell the stories of design, technology, and trade, and to illustrate how people drank, dined, and decorated their homes over the past five centuries.

In 1982, at the opening of the Reeves Center, the dean of the College, William J. Watt, praised Jim Whitehead for “the vision when he saw those 200 barrels of porcelain that this could be built into a great thing for learning and teaching at Washington and Lee.”8 As the Reeves Collection enters its next 50 years at Washington and Lee, it will continue to fulfill its mission to advance learning through direct engagement with collections, stimulate appreciation of global cultures, and inspire leadership in the arts and sciences.9

ABOUT THE CATALOG What follows is a selection of 50 ceramics from the Reeves Collection. They were made in Asia, Europe, and the Americas, some as early as the early 1600s and some as recently as the 21st century. Acquired over the past 50 years, they reflect the range and diversity of the collection.

The pieces were selected because they are particularly fine examples of their type, or because they have especially interesting stories, or both. In some cases, an entry includes two or three objects that relate to one another. The entries are arranged roughly chronologically.

Dish (left) Made in Jingdezhen, China, 1600–1620 Made of Hard-Paste Porcelain 12.75” Diameter Gift of Mr. and Mrs. J. Bolton McBryde

Dish (right) Made in Delft, the Netherlands, 1670–1700 Made of Tin-Glazed Earthenware 10” Diameter Museum Purchase with Funds Provided by W. Groke Mickey

8

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he dish below is an example of the first Chinese porcelain that was shipped all over the globe. Known as kraak, it was made between about 1575 and the mid-1640s. Its most recognizable characteristic is a border divided into panels that contain flowers or Daoist, Buddhist, or other auspicious symbols.

Kraak was shipped throughout Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and the Americas, starting a fashion for blue-and-white dishes that has never faded. Kraak also had a tremendous influence on ceramic traditions around the world, inspiring potters to try to imitate the material itself, and barring that, at least to imitate its distinctive design.

Among those who tried to imitate Chinese kraak were potters in the Netherlands. While they could not make porcelain, they improved the tin-glazed earthenware known as majolica that they had been making (see p. 11), developing a finer and thinner body and adding a second layer of glaze to better mimic the glassy surface of porcelain. The result was, as seen in the dish below, in the words of an early Dutch writer, “in color and shine and painting, just like that which is brought here from China ‌ the difference lies only in the material.â€?10

9

Wine Cup Made in Jingdezhen, China, 1600–1640 Made of Hard-Paste Porcelain 1.75” Tall Gift of Mrs. Frances DuBose

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his tiny cup, about the size of a modernday shot glass, is a testament to the growing popularity and availability of Chinese export porcelain in the first decades of the 17th century.

Used for drinking brandy or spirits, which were known in the period as aqua vitae, or “water of life,” cups like this must have been among the most common types of porcelain exported to Europe in the early 17th century. They are found in archaeological sites in the Netherlands and England, and even in America; about a dozen have been recovered from sites in Virginia. By 1615, at least 44,000 of these small cups had been exported to the Netherlands, and by 1619, officials in Amsterdam were begging their agents in Asia not to send any more “because the country is full of them.” Despite the oversupply, cups like this continued to be exported into the 1640s, when civil war in China disrupted porcelain production.

This particular cup never made it to its ultimate destination; it was part of the cargo of a Chinese junk that sank in the mid1640s after hitting a reef in the South China Sea. It survived intact underwater for more than three centuries, and was among some 25,000 pieces of porcelain recovered from the wreck in the early 1980s.11

10

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hile the melon, two apples, and pomegranate that decorate this dish may be just decorative, they also may have a symbolic meaning. Melons often symbolized earthly pleasures and sweetness; apples the fall of mankind and redemption; and pomegranates, especially when split open and spilling out their abundant seeds, fertility, as well as Christ’s suffering and resurrection.

The dish is made of majolica, a type of tin-glazed earthenware made in the Netherlands in the 16th and 17th centuries. Inspired by Italian pottery, it is thickly potted, brightly colored, and often only the front is coated with the more expensive tin glaze; the back has a cheaper, plain lead glaze.

Dish Made in Haarlem, the Netherlands, 1620–1630 Made of Tin-Glazed Earthenware 13.5” Diameter Museum Purchase with Funds Provided by W. Groke Mickey

Though it was the finest type of ceramic made in the Netherlands in the 16th century, in the 17th century, majolica faced fierce competition from imported Chinese porcelain. This forced potters to improve their product, developing a thinner, more refined, tin-glazed earthenware that became known as delftware (see p.

8–9).12

11

Jar Made in Jingdezhen, China, 1630–1644 Made of Hard-Paste Porcelain 10.75” Tall Gift of W. Groke Mickey

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scene of an emperor offering his throne to a wise hermit is painted around the body of this jar. It is one of a number of stories of renounced kingship that were popular in the last years of the Ming dynasty.

This particular scene may depict Emperor Yao offering the throne to Xu You. Xu declined, saying that “the world is already governed … I have no use for the rulership of the world!” Other accounts say that Xu You washed out his ears to rid himself of contamination from the offer before returning to his herds. During the late Ming dynasty, scenes such as this could be read as a critique of corrupt Ming rulers and the stresses and conflicts of public office.

Jars like this were designed for Chinese consumers, but were also exported to Europe, where the scenes of Chinese figures would have been especially popular. One 1635 order instructed that all of the porcelain bought “should be painted curiously and skillfully, with Chinese persons on foot and on horseback, water, landscapes, pleasure-houses, their boats, birds, and animals, all this is well liked in Europe.” Of course, the identification of the story on this jar, let alone its subtle political commentary, would have been lost on its European owner, who would have simply seen it as an exotic scene of a faraway land.13

12

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n the 17th century, salt-glazed stoneware mugs and jugs made in the Westerwald region along the Rhine were one of Germany’s major exports. These sturdy yet refined vessels, often ornamented with molded decoration set against a brilliant cobalt-blue ground, were popular with everyone from princes to peasants, and were used throughout Europe as well as in European settlements in North America, Africa, and Asia.

At least one of these mugs made it to Japan, where it was copied by a Japanese potter looking for forms that would appeal to the European export market. If they or the Dutch merchants they dealt with thought that porcelain copies could compete with the stoneware originals, they seem to have been mistaken. Japanese porcelain mugs like this are rare today, suggesting that they were not a popular product.

The circular medallions on the mugs may have been inspired by molded pads called prunts, which were common on contemporary glassware. These applied bits may have been more than just decorative. In the days before forks were common, people ate with their fingers, and the textured pads helped greasy fingers better grip the glass or mug.14

Mug (right) Made in Westerwald, Germany, 1650–1700 Made of Salt-Glazed Stoneware 8” Tall Museum Purchase with Funds Provided by W. Groke Mickey

Mug (left) Made in Arita, Japan, 1680–1700 Made of Hard-Paste Porcelain 5” Tall Museum Purchase with Funds Provided by W. Groke Mickey

13

Figure of Guanyin Made in Dehua, China, 1650–1700 Made of Hard-Paste Porcelain 7.75” Tall Museum Purchase

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uanyin, the Bodhisattva of Compassion, was one of the most popular deities in Chinese Buddhism. Also known as the goddess of mercy, she was the protector of sailors and of mothers, and could help women conceive a child. To facilitate her worship, small devotional figures like this were made for domestic altars.

This figure shows Guanyin seated on a rocky throne holding an infant and accompanied by her acolytes Shancai and Longü. It was made in Dehua, in Fujian province in eastern China, a city known for its glassy white porcelain. Known in China as zhuyoubai, or “pork-grease white,” or as xiangyabai, or “ivory white,” it is known in the West by the French term blanc-de-chine, or “Chinese white.”

By the 17th century, international trade was moving people, ideas, and objects around the globe. Figures of Guanyin moved throughout Asia, Europe, and the Americas, taking on new identities and meanings. Because she resembled the Virgin Mary and Christ child, she was adopted by Catholic missionaries working in Asia, helping to ease conversion to Christianity.

Protestant English merchants sometimes referred to them as “Sancta Marias,” even though they saw them more as decorative objects than devotional figures. Underscoring her global appeal, a Dehua figure of Guanyin appeared in 1655 on a map of Asia published in Willem and Joannes Blaeu’s Nieuw Atlas.15

14

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his bottle or vase, with its bright, finely painted decoration on a milky white ground, is a fine example of Japanese Kakiemon porcelain. Made between about 1670 and 1700 for domestic use and export, Kakiemon is named after the Kakiemon family of potters, who are thought to have developed the palette.

The deceptively simple form was in fact quite difficult to make, and required carefully luting, or joining, slabs of clay together. The decoration consists of alternating panels of stylized flowers and prunus mume, or “flowering plum,” which symbolizes purity and renewal in traditional Japanese culture. Originally, it had a stopper and was probably designed as a sake bottle.

Bottle or Vase Made in Arita, Japan, 1670–1700 Made of Hard-Paste Porcelain 9” Tall Museum Purchase with Funds Provided by W. Groke Mickey

Kakiemon was among the most exclusive and expensive types of Asian porcelain exported to Europe. It was owned by the most aristocratic of consumers, such as Augustus the Strong, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, who owned at least one vase identical to this one.

Though production of Kakiemon stopped about 1700, the style remained popular throughout the 18th century and inspired copies by several European porcelain manufacturers (see pp. 24, 32 and 34).16

15

Bottle Made in Arita, Japan, 1674–1700 Made of Hard-Paste Porcelain 10” Tall Museum Purchase with Funds Provided by W. Groke Mickey

16

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he initials on this bottle are thought to be those of Willem ten Rhijne (1649–1700), a Dutch physician who worked in Japan between 1674 and 1676.

Ten Rhijne was sent to Japan by the Dutch East India Company at the request of Japanese officials, who were interested in learning about Western medical techniques. This information exchange went both ways. While in Japan, Ten Rhijne learned about Eastern medical techniques, and in 1683 he published the first book in Europe on acupuncture.

This bottle was probably used to hold wine, and was probably inspired by glass wine bottles ornamented with round seals containing initials or coats of arms that were becoming popular in late-17th-century Europe. The bottle may have been for Ten Rhijne’s own use, or to be a personalized gift for a Japanese friend.

Ten Rhijne is known to have given “distilled water” (alcoholic spirits) to Japanese physicians as a gift, and an early-18th-century Japanese porcelain tea set (below) is decorated with a scene of two Japanese men picnicking with a similar bottle, suggesting that European-style ceramics were sometimes collected and used by Japanese individuals.17

Saucer (detail) Made in Arita, Japan, 1700–1725 Made of Hard-Paste Porcelain 5.5” Diameter Museum Purchase with Funds Provided by W. Groke Mickey

17

Plate Made in London, England, 1683 Made of Tin-Glazed Earthenware 8.25” Diameter Museum Purchase with Funds Provided by W. Groke Mickey

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lone Chinese scholar contemplating a rocky landscape decorates this plate. This design was popular on English tin-glazed earthenware made between 1675 and 1695, and was inspired by Chinese porcelain made in the mid-17th century.

Porcelain decorated with scenes of a figure alone in a mountainous landscape became popular in China in the 1630s. They were inspired by Chinese paintings, which in turn may be derived from the eighth-century poet Wang Wei, who wrote, “I walk to the place where the water ends / and sit and watch the time when clouds rise.” Such scenes of seclusion and contemplation took on special significance during the political and social upheaval of mid17th-century China.

Such meaning, of course, would have been completely lost on European and American audiences, who would have seen the decoration as merely exotic and stylish. Plates like this are an early example of chinoiserie, a European interpretation of Chinese designs, and are among the earliest examples of asymmetrical design on English ceramics.

Juxtaposed with the Chinese scene are the initials of the plate’s original owners (their surname begins with a W, his first name with an I or J, and hers with an M) and the date 1683, probably the year they married.18

18

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his massive dish (almost two feet across) epitomizes everything that Europeans found appealing about Japanese export porcelain. It is large, colorful, and richly decorated with a combination of familiar European elements, such as the vase of flowers (notice the medallion containing a portrait of a man on the lower part of the vase), and exotic Asian elements, such as the flowers and the birds on a black ground (imitating lacquer) on the rim.

Dish Made in Arita, Japan, about 1700 Made of Hard-Paste Porcelain 23.25� Diameter Museum Purchase with Funds Provided by W. Groke Mickey

The dish is decorated in what is known as the Imari palette, which is characterized by dense and rich designs painted in underglaze blue and overglaze red and gold. Made between about 1690 and 1750, it is named after the Japanese port of Imari. Located near Arita, the home of the Japanese porcelain industry, Imari was the port through which porcelain was shipped to other ports in Japan, including Nagasaki, where the Dutch had their trading post.

Only the wealthiest of European royalty and aristocracy could afford such large dishes, which were used not for dining, but rather for decorating grand interiors. While it is unknown who owned this particular dish, Augustus II, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, had a similar one.19

19

Mug Probably made by John Morley, Nottingham, England, about 1700 Made of Salt-Glazed Stoneware 4” Tall Museum Purchase with Funds Provided by W. Groke Mickey

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his pierced, doublewalled mug is a tour-de-force of the potter’s art. It was thrown from a single lump of clay, with the potter raising two walls, one inside the other, which were then brought together, leaving a space in between, and raised further to make the neck.

Once the clay dried, the potter cut openings in the outer wall of the body.

John Morley, a potter in Nottingham, probably made this mug.

Double-walled vessels seem to have been a specialty of his. He illustrated a similar piece, which he called “a carved jug,” in an advertisement that also showed pierced pitchers, coffee cups, and even flowerpots.

Morley was probably inspired by pierced, double-walled vessels of Chinese porcelain known as ling-long (see below).20

Teapot Made in Jingdezhen, China, about 1700 Made of Hard-Paste Porcelain 6.5” Tall Gift of H. Gordon Leggett, Jr.

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he function and even the form of an object can change as it moves from place to place and across time. That is what happened with this piece.

It started as a plain blue-and-white vessel designed to be an incense burner in a Chinese home or temple. By about 1720, it had been exported to the Netherlands. There, its new owners found it too plain, and had it embellished with red and green enamels and gold over and around the original underglaze blue decoration. Its function also changed, and it became a serving bowl.

Tureen Body made in Jingdezhen, China, about 1700 Cover made at the Du Paquier Factory, Vienna, about 1735 Made of Hard-Paste Porcelain 9.25” Diameter Museum Purchase with Funds Provided by W. Groke Mickey

By about 1735, the bowl had moved to Vienna, where it was transformed into a soup tureen with the addition of a lid made at the Du Paquier porcelain factory. The painter very carefully copied the decorations on the bowl, probably not realizing that some were Chinese and some Dutch.

Soup was becoming an increasingly prominent part of fine dining, and required impressive and specialized forms for its service. Du Paquier produced wares “for the soups or for the first course,” and at least in this instance, also adapted earlier pieces to serve this new function.21

21

Coffee Cup with

the Arms of Gough

Made in Jingdezhen, China, about 1710 Made of Hard-Paste Porcelain 2.75” Tall Gift of H.F. Lenfest and Beverly M. DuBose III

Gaming Counter

with the Arms of Gough Impaling Hynde Made in Guangzhou (Canton), China, 1730–1735 Made of Mother-of-Pearl 1.25” Diameter Museum Purchase with Funds Provided by H.F. Lenfest, Beverly M. DuBose III, and W. Groke Mickey

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he crest of Harry Gough (1681–1751), an Englishman who made his fortune in the China Trade, decorates this coffee cup.

Gough began his career at the age of 11, when he traveled to China as the assistant to his uncle, Richard Gough. By 1707, he was captain of his own ship, the Streatham, which he commanded until 1715. These voyages enabled Gough to, in the words of his son, “acquire a decent competency” that allowed him to retire from the sea. Typically, several successful voyages earned a captain enough money to establish himself as part of the landed gentry. This is exactly what Gough did, purchasing an estate in Warwickshire, being elected as a member of Parliament, and serving as a director of the East India Company.

One of the ways Gough showed off his new status was by commissioning armorial porcelain. He and his wife, Elizabeth Hynde, had at least three services of their own, and a fourth with the Gough arms may have belonged to them or to one of their relatives.

In addition to armorial porcelain, Gough acquired other Chinese luxuries, including a set of mother-of-pearl gaming counters

engraved with their impaled arms. Used to represent sums of money while gambling at cards, counters usually came in sets of 140 pieces of varying shapes, and were often commissioned at the same time as armorial porcelain.

The cup is part of the David Sanctuary Howard Collection of Chinese Armorial Porcelain Coffee Cups. Possibly the largest collection of its kind, it contains 600 coffee cups made between about 1705 and 1860, and emblazoned with the arms of English, Scottish, Irish, Welsh, British Caribbean, and British North American individuals. Howard chose coffee cups because they provided “the maximum amount of heraldic information in the minimum amount of space.” The counter also comes from Howard’s collection of armorial gaming counters, which numbers more than 800 pieces. Both collections are now at the Reeves.22

23

Saucer Made at the Meissen Porcelain Manufactory, Meissen, Germany, 1729–1731 Made of Hard-Paste Porcelain 4.75” Diameter Mr. and Mrs. Euchlin D. Reeves Collection in Memory of Mrs. Chester Green Reeves and Miss Lizzie H. Dyer

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his saucer was made as a fake, meant to deceive its buyer. It was made at the Royal Porcelain Manufactory in Meissen, Germany, and is in the style of Japanese Kakiemon porcelain. (See p. 15.)

Meissen was the first factory in Europe to make porcelain, and its products were incredibly expensive and desirable. However, Meissen was not nearly as expensive and desirable as genuine Japanese Kakiemon. And so in 1728, Rudolph Lemaire, a French merchant, conspired with Carl Heinrich von Hoym, the director of the factory, to copy pieces of Japanese Kakiemon. At Lemaire’s request, the Meissen mark (a pair of crossed swords) was not painted under the glaze, as was typical, but rather over the glaze.

Thus it could be easily removed, allowing Lemaire to disguise the pieces’ European origin and sell them as Japanese.

Von Hoym and Lemaire’s fraud was discovered, and the pieces they had commissioned were confiscated and added to the Royal Collections in 1731. The number was staggering; this saucer was one of the “thirty-six dozen and three saucers with brown rims, corn and other flowers” that were still in the collection in 1779.23

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his plate comes from one of the most elaborate armorial porcelain sets ever made. Made for Leake Okeover (1701–1765) and his wife, Mary Nichol (?–1764), of Derbyshire, England, it is decorated with their impaled coat of arms surrounded by elaborate rococo-style decoration.

The Okeovers probably ordered their porcelain in 1738, sending a painted pattern to China with the instructions “The Arms of Leake Okeover Esqre. Of Okeover near Ashbourne in the Peak in the County of Derbyshire — a pattern for a China plate. Pattern to be returned.” In January of 1740 the pattern was returned, and with it came 30 large round serving dishes and 70 plates. The service cost an astounding £99.11.10, and is one of the most expensive armorial services known. The Okeovers were so pleased with their service that they ordered additional pieces, which were delivered in 1743.

Plate

with the Arms of Okeover Impaling Nichol Made in China, about 1739 or 1742 Made of Hard-Paste Porcelain 9” Diameter Museum Purchase with Funds Provided by Herbert G. McKay

The Okeovers lived lavishly, renovating their home, Okeover Hall, and commissioning elaborate and expensive furnishings, including a silver teapot and coffeepot covered with rococostyle ornament that included many of the same sea horses and other nautical elements that appeared on their porcelain.

Their expenses eventually caught up with them.

According to one family historian, Okeover “greatly diminished the patrimony of the family by his extravagance,” running up huge debts that forced him to flee to France in 1751 to avoid his creditors. There, he lived under the name “Monsieur William Scrimshaw.”24 25

Soup Plate

with the Arms of Lee Quartering Astley Made in Jingdezhen, China, probably decorated in Guangzhou (Canton), around 1733 Made of Hard-Paste Porcelain 8.75” Diameter Museum Purchase

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iews of two of the great China Trade ports of the 18th century, Guangzhou and London, frame the arms of the Lee family of England.

Guangzhou, which was known to Europeans as Canton, was one of China’s largest ports, and from 1757 to 1842 was the only Chinese port open to foreign merchants. One British visitor compared its busy waterfront to London: “The scene upon the water is as busy a one as the Thames below London Bridge, with this difference, that instead of our square rigged vessels of different dimensions, you there have junks.” The delicately painted view of the city was probably based on a Chinese scroll painting.

London was 18th-century Britain’s largest port and was home to the Honourable East India Company, which had a monopoly on British trade with Asia and which dominated the global China Trade in the 18th century. The view of London, with an ocean-going square rigger below London Bridge, is almost certainly taken from the illustration on the title page of The London Magazine, a monthly magazine covering current events, arts, and literature, which started publication in 1732.

26

The soup plate is part of a service made for Eldred (1650–1734) and Isabella Lee (1650–1737), of Coton, in Shropshire, England, or for their son Lancelot (1677–1767). Like many families that had armorial porcelain, the Lees were connected to the China Trade. Isabella’s uncle, Richard, and her brother, Harry (see p. 22), worked for the British East India Company. One of them probably commissioned the service.

The Lees of Virginia, who probably shared a common ancestor with Eldred Lee, also used this coat of arms.25

View of London from Title Page The London Magazine: or, Gentleman’s Monthly Intelligencer London: Printed by C. Ackers, 1732 Washington and Lee University, Special Collections and University Archives

27

Plate (below)

with the Arms of Gresley with Bowyer in Pretence Made in China, about 1735 Made of Hard-Paste Porcelain 9” Diameter Gift of Bruce C. Perkins

Scalloped Dish (upper right)

with the Arms of Gresley with Bowyer in Pretence Made at the Worcester Porcelain Factory, Worcester, England, about 1770 Made of Soft-Paste Porcelain 11.75” Long Gift of Bruce C. Perkins

Plate (lower right)

with the Arms of Gresley with Bowyer in Pretence Made at the Derby Porcelain Factory, Derby, England, around 1821 Made of Soft-Paste Porcelain 9” Diameter Gift of Bruce C. Perkins 28

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hese dishes are a testament to the popularity of armorial porcelain among British families, and to their commitment to using family heirlooms to demonstrate their family heritage and pride.

About 1735, Sir Thomas Gresley (c. 1699–1746) and his wife, Dorothy Bowyer (1691–1736), commissioned a set of Chinese armorial porcelain decorated with their coat of arms. They had married in 1719. He was the Fourth Baronet Drakelow and lived at Drakelow in Derbyshire. Dorothy was the only surviving child of Sir William Bowyer, of nearby Staffordshire.

Thomas and Dorothy’s service was inherited by their descendants, who replaced broken pieces and added new forms to keep the service usable and up-to-date. In the 1730s, a service would have consisted of only plates and circular platters, but within a few decades, additional forms were needed for fine dining. Around 1770, pieces for dessert were ordered from the Worcester Factory, probably by Thomas and Dorothy’s son, Nigel (1727–1787),

the Sixth Baronet, and his wife, Elizabeth Wynn (1720–1793). Nigel and Elizabeth lived in Worcester, which probably explains why their replacements were made there.

By the early 19th century, nearly a century of use had probably resulted in considerable breakage, and so Thomas and Dorothy’s great-grandson, Sir Roger (1799–1837), the Eighth Baronet, ordered further pieces from the Derby Factory, probably around the time of his marriage to Sophia Coventry (?–1875) in 1821. Not content with just their ancestor’s armorial porcelain, the couple also commissioned a Derby service with their own arms.26 29

Tureen Stand from the Swan Service

Made at the Meissen Porcelain Manufactory, Meissen, Germany, 1740–1741 Made of Hard-Paste Porcelain 19.75” Long Mr. and Mrs. Euchlin D. Reeves Collection in Memory of Mrs. Chester Green Reeves and Miss Lizzie H. Dyer

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he two swans swimming across the surface of this stand give the service from which it comes its name: the Swan Service. Made for Heinrich von Brühl (1700–1763) of Saxony between 1737 and 1742, the service contained more than 2,200 pieces and was the largest and most elaborate service ever made at Meissen.

Johann Joachim Kändler (1706–1775), Meissen’s chief modeler, came up with the design, reporting in April of 1736 that he had “cut a flat relief showing two swans and two other water fowl into a plate in the shape of a sea shell.” His design was inspired by a print by Johann Leonhard

Buggel, which itself copied a print by Wenceslaus Hollar, which itself copied a drawing by Francis Barlow. The aquatic theme was a play on Von Brühl’s name, which means “marshy ground.”

The coat of arms are of Von Brühl and his wife, Countess Franziska Kolovrat-Krakovski (1717–1762). Von Brühl worked for Augustus II and Augustus III, Electors of Saxony and Kings of Poland, serving in numerous positions, including director of the Meissen factory.

In 1737 he was granted the right to commission porcelain free of charge from the factory, a perk that resulted in the creation of the Swan Service.

Louise Herreshoff is thought to have bought this piece while in Europe studying painting at the turn of the 20th century.27

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Plate Made at the Chelsea Porcelain Factory, London, England, about 1752 Made of Soft-Paste Porcelain 8.5” Diameter Museum Purchase with Funds Provided by W. Groke Mickey

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he Chelsea Factory, where this plate was made, was the first successful English porcelain manufactory. Founded about 1745 by Nicholas Sprimont (1713–1771), an immigrant silversmith from Liège (in modern-day Belgium), the factory made elaborate wares designed for an aristocratic clientele.

The plate is decorated in what Chelsea called “the twisted dragon pattern” and closely copied stylish Kakiemon porcelain made in Japan between about 1670 and 1700 (see p. 15). Unsurprising considering Sprimont’s training as a silversmith, several of the shapes that Chelsea produced were inspired by silver forms, including the shell-like border on this plate, which copied silver dishes made by Sprimont in the 1740s.28

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ade of dense, unglazed stoneware, teapots made in Yixing were considered by Chinese connoisseurs to be the best vessels for brewing tea. Yixing pots were most commonly red, but purple, brown, and buff-colored clays were also used, allowing for two-tone effects like the ones seen on this pot.

Yixing pots were equally prized outside of China, and were exported in large numbers to Great Britain, continental Europe, and the Americas. A pot nearly identical to this one descended in the Warner-Sherbourne family, of Portsmouth, New Hampshire.29

Teapot Made in Yixing, China, 1750–1780 Made of Stoneware 10.5� Long Museum Purchase with Funds Provided by W. Groke Mickey

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Dish

with the Arms of Walpole Impaling Cavendish Made in Jingdezhen, China, about 1752 Made of Hard-Paste Porcelain 13.75” Diameter Museum Purchase with Funds Provided by W. Groke Mickey

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hough this dish was made in China, its shape and decoration are Japanese, and it closely copies pieces of Kakiemon porcelain made in Arita, Japan, between 1670 and 1720 (see p. 15).

Though the decoration on the front (below) is Asian, that on the back (right) is decidedly European. Nearly filling the underside are the arms of Horatio Walpole (1723–1809) impaling those of his wife, Rachel Cavendish (1727–1805). The Walpoles were an 18th-century power couple; he was a wealthy and well-connected landowner and politician and a nephew of the prime minister, Robert Walpole. She was the daughter of William Cavendish, the Duke of Devonshire.

They married in 1748, and divided their time between a house in London and their estate, Wolterton Hall, in Norfolk.

Known as “Japan China,” Kakiemon was the most coveted type of porcelain available in Europe from the late 17th century through the mid-18th century. Its manufacture had stopped by the early 18th century, and its scarcity only added to its price and desirability.

The Walpoles, no doubt wanting the stylish cachet of Japanese Kakiemon porcelain but unable to get enough of the real thing (let alone a whole set emblazoned with their coat of arms), commissioned a set from China. They probably did this through Horatio’s younger brother, Richard Walpole, who was a captain for the Honourable East India Company and who traveled to China in 1752 and 1757.30

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Punch Bowl

with the Arms of the Anti-Gallican Society Made in Jingdezhen, Decorated in Guangzhou (Canton), China, about 1755 Made of Hard-Paste Porcelain Diameter 7.75” Museum Purchase with Funds Provided by the Buddy Taub Foundation, Dennis and Jill Roach, Directors

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ampaigns to encourage consumers to “buy local” are not new. This punch bowl is decorated with the coat of arms of the Anti-Gallican Society, a British organization that was founded in 1745 “to promote British Manufactures, extend the Commerce of England, and discourage the Introduction of French modes and the Importation of French commodities.” The arms of the society are replete with nationalistic symbols: The crest is a figure of Britannia, and the shield has a view of Saint George, the patron saint of England, spearing a shield decorated with a French fleur-de-lis. The motto is “For Our Country.”

The bowl is among a number of pieces of Chinese export porcelain decorated with the Anti-Gallican coat of arms, and was probably intended to be used during club meetings.31

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his plate celebrates Great Britain’s alliance with Prussia in the Seven Years War (1756–1763), and is decorated with a portrait of Frederick the Great, King of Prussia (1712– 1786) (upper right on rim), and the slogan “SUCCESS TO THE KING OF PRUSSIA AND HIS FORCES.” Fought between Britain and France, the conflict affected Europe, North America, the Caribbean, and India. It was, in the words of Winston Churchill (who knew a global conflict when he saw one), the first truly “world war.” Britain’s victory helped launch its empire, and also planted the seeds for American independence.

Plate Made in Staffordshire, England, 1756–1763 Made of Salt-Glazed Stoneware 9” Diameter Mr. and Mrs. Euchlin D. Reeves Collection in Memory of Mrs. Chester Green Reeves and Miss Lizzie H. Dyer

Frederick was celebrated in Britain because of his military victories and his adherence to the Protestant faith (France and her allies were Catholic). According to one British politician, “our constant toast now is ‘Success to the King of Prussia.’ He grows vastly popular among us.”

Fragments of these plates have been found in Williamsburg, and in Alexandria, Virginia, both towns associated with George Washington, whose military career began during the war.32

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Coffee Pot Made in Staffordshire, England, 1765–1775 Made of Creamware 10� Tall Mr. and Mrs. Euchlin D. Reeves Collection in Memory of Mrs. Chester Green Reeves and Miss Lizzie H. Dyer

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aturalistically modeled to look like a cauliflower, this coffee pot would have struck a novel note on a tea table.

That cauliflower was still a somewhat exotic vegetable in 18thcentury Britain may partly explain why someone decided to design tea and coffee wares in its image, but there was also a broader interest in ceramics modeled to look like fruit and vegetables from the 1750s into the 1770s. This trend reflected an increased interest in the natural world and exotic plants.

In addition to coffee pots, teapots, cream jugs, sugar bowls, and even cups and saucers molded to look like cauliflower were available. And if the consumers did not want cauliflower, they could choose among pineapple-, apple-, melon-, and cabbage-shaped wares, which were also made by English potters.33

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oats of arms are officially granted by a government office; in Britain this is done by the College of Arms, which was founded in 1484. Individuals who did not have a coat of arms and did not want to go through the complicated process and expense of applying for one, but who still wanted the social cachet that came with being armigerous (bearing a coat of arms), often just made one up.

That is what the now-unknown owner of this plate did, creating a personal statement of his rise to wealth. The arms are replete with imagery redolent of the China Trade. The shield is decorated with trade goods, including three porcelain dishes, and a merchant ship. The shield is supported by Chinese and Indian figures and surmounted by a crest of an arm holding a pistol. It, along with the mottos “I Rose by Those” and “Ready and Steady,” hints at the sometimes aggressive and violent nature of the China Trade.34

Plate

with the Pseudo Coat of Arms of a China Trade Merchant Made in Jingdezhen, Decorated in Guangzhou (Canton), China, about 1775 Made of Hard-Paste Porcelain 8.75” Diameter Museum Purchase with Funds Provided by the Buddy Taub Foundation, Dennis and Jill Roach, Directors

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Tureen Stand and Platter Made in Jingdezhen, China, about 1770 Made of Hard-Paste Porcelain 14.25” Long and 14.5” Long Museum Purchases with Funds Provided by the Buddy Taub Foundation, Dennis and Jill Roach, Directors, and Herbert McKay

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hinese export porcelain, like most ceramics, was massproduced, with different stages of its production divided among different workers. This specialization of labor included not just the potters, but also the painters.

As Francois Xavier D’Entrecolles, a Jesuit missionary in the Chinese porcelain-producing center of Jingdezhen, noted in the early 18th century, “the Labour of Painting is divided in the same Laboratory between a great number of Workmen: It is the Business of one to make the coloured Circle, which is near the Edges of China-ware; another traces the Flowers, which are painted by a third; it belongs to one to make Rivers and Mountains, to another Birds and other Animals.”

These two pieces reveal the process. The stand below is unfinished,

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its production interrupted after the piece had been formed, painted in underglaze blue, glazed, and fired, but before it received the overglaze enamel decoration that would have finished the design.

The platter on this page shows the completed design. It seems likely that painters would have had templates showing exactly what to paint and where. The underglaze-blue painter (opposite) left a blank spot on the deck of the boat where the woman would stand, and interrupted the stem of the plant to leave a space for a flower.

The scene combines elements of both Asia and Europe; the woman on the boat and the oversized peony and lotus blossoms are Chinese, while the domed building is thought to be a view of the sacristy of the Cathedral of Seville, Spain.35

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Salad Bowl Made in Jingdezhen, Decorated in Guangzhou (Canton), China, 1784 Made of Hard-Paste Porcelain 10.125” Long Gift of the Edward H. Thompson Family

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his bowl is from what is arguably the most significant Chinese export porcelain service made for the American market. Commissioned by Samuel Shaw (1754–1794), the first American merchant to go to China, it was owned first

by George Washington (1732–1799), and later by his step-greatgranddaughter Mary Custis (1808–1873), and her husband, Robert E. Lee (1807–1870).

Each of the service’s 302 pieces was decorated with a figure of Fame holding the badge of the Society of the Cincinnati, an organization of Revolutionary War officers, of which Washington had been president. The society was named after Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus, a Roman farmer turned military leader from the fifth century B.C. Cincinnatus served his country without expectation of reward or power, and was seen by many as the model of a selfless patriot; George Washington, a farmer who had led American troops to victory and then retired to Mount Vernon, was seen by many as a modern-day Cincinnatus.

Washington purchased the service in 1786 for $150, and he and his wife Martha (1731–1802) used it at Mount Vernon and the

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president’s mansions in New York and Philadelphia. Washington could have commissioned porcelain decorated with his coat of arms, but, highly aware that his possessions conveyed messages about his values, he may have decided that instead of something that spoke to inherited wealth and power, he would choose something that would reinforce his identity as a selfless leader who would serve his country without expectation of reward.

Following Washington’s death in 1799, the service passed to Martha, who left it to her grandson, George Washington Parke Custis (1891–1857). Upon his death, it went to his daughter, Mary, and her husband, Robert E. Lee. In May of 1861, after Robert E. Lee chose to fight for the Confederacy, Mary left Arlington, their home near Washington, D.C. She hid the Cincinnati service and other Washington heirlooms in the cellar and entrusted the keys to Selina Gray (dates unknown), her enslaved African-American maid. Arlington was occupied by federal troops, and Gray eventually turned the pieces over to the military to assure their protection.

The federal government kept the Cincinnati service until 1901, when it was returned to Mary and Robert’s son, Custis Lee. Since then, the service has been divided among private collectors and public museums.36

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Saucer Dish Made at the Royal Porcelain Manufactory at Sèvres, France, 1787 Made of Soft-Paste Porcelain 9.25” Diameter Gift of Mr. and Mrs. William Grover, Jr.

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he high quality of the painting and the gilding on this dish illustrate why Sèvres was considered the finest porcelain available in the second half of the 18th century.

Known as a compotier rond, it would probably have been used for serving fruit compote, and it comes from a dessert service made for John FitzGibbon (1749–1802), an Irish nobleman and politician.

The service was commissioned for FitzGibbon by his friend William Eden (1745–1814), a British diplomat serving in France, and Eden’s wife, Eleanor (1758–1818). FitzGibbon wrote to Eden in May of 1787 that “as to pattern and shape, I commit myself altogether to Mrs. Eden.” FitzGibbon was pleased with her choice of flowers, writing that it “does very great honour to her taste.”

The commission was part of a reciprocal agreement. In return for handling the design, manufacture and shipment of the porcelain, the Edens received custom-made leather gloves from Limerick, a city known for its fine leatherwork.

Like many in the aristocracy, FitzGibbon used a silver service for the main courses of a formal dinner (he noted that his footmen burned their fingers serving hot soup in silver bowls). More colorful porcelain was typically used for dessert, which was considered less formal.37

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hough relatively inexpensive when new, this visually arresting teapot was actually rather complicated to make.

The vertical reeding around its base and the black-andwhite checkered band would have been created with an engineturning lathe, and the speckled ground was made by sprinkling chips of different colored clay onto a field of wet slip (liquid clay) and then shaving them smooth on a lathe.

Why expend so much effort to decorate a simple teapot? It was probably designed to appeal to the middle class’s growing interest in what became known as “fancy” objects, which were characterized by exuberant color and pattern that were designed to delight, amuse, and excite the viewer’s mind and emotions.

Teapot Made in Staffordshire, England, 1780–1790 Made of Pearlware 9.5” Long Mr. and Mrs. Euchlin D. Reeves Collection in Memory of Mrs. Chester Green Reeves and Miss Lizzie H. Dyer

Pots like this are known today as “mocha ware,” but when they were new they were known as “dipped” or “dipt” ware, referring to the slip used in its decoration.38

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Vase Made by Josiah Wedgwood’s Etruria Factory, Staffordshire, England, about 1790 Made of Black Basalt (Stoneware) 7.25” Tall Museum Purchase with Funds Provided by W. Groke Mickey

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n the 1760s, Sir William Hamilton (1730–1803), the British envoy to Naples, assembled a collection of ancient ceramics that had been found in tombs in southern Italy. The vases, urns, and pots were decorated with red figures painted on a black ground, and were made in Greece and southern Italy in the fourth century B.C. He later sold the collection to the British Museum.

A four-volume catalog of the collection, titled Collection of Etruscan, Greek, and Roman Antiquities from the Cabinet of the Honorable William Hamilton, was published between 1766 and 1776. It proved immensely influential as a design source, especially for the English potter Josiah Wedgwood (1730–1795).

Wedgwood, who styled himself “vasemaker general to the world,” liberally borrowed from it for his black basalt vases painted with red encaustic enamel, so much so that they were sometimes referred to as “Hamilton Vases.” Wedgwood and his designers

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rarely copied the antique vases exactly, but rather combined elements from different vases and their own imaginations to create something new that looked old.

This is a typical example. The figure on the right is Peitho, the ancient Greek goddess of persuasion. She and the decoration on the back are copied from a vase made in southern Italy around 360 B.C., which is illustrated on plate 74 of volume one of Collection of Etruscan, Greek, and Roman Antiquities. The identity of the figure on the left is unknown, and was either made up or copied from a now-unknown source.39

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Medallion Made at Josiah Wedgwood’s Etruria Factory, Staffordshire, England, 1787–1800 Made of Jasperware (Unglazed Stoneware) 1.25” Tall Museum Purchase with Funds Provided by W. Groke Mickey

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ne of the most famous images of the abolitionist movement decorates this medallion. The image of a shackled, kneeling, enslaved African with the motto “Am I not a Man and a Brother” was designed in 1787 as the seal for the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade, which had been founded in Great Britain that same year.

The potter Josiah Wedgwood (1730–1795) was an early member of the society and made the medallions as part of his contribution to the cause. Thomas Clarkson, one of the leaders of the movement, wrote of the medallion’s use: Some had them inlaid in gold on the lid of their snuffboxes.

Of the ladies, several wore them in bracelets and others had them fitted up in an ornamental manner as pins for their hair. At length, the taste for wearing them became general, and thus fashion, which usually confines itself to worthless things, was seen for once in the honourable office of promoting the cause of justice, humanity, and freedom.

Benjamin Franklin, recognizing that a picture could be worth a thousand words, echoed Clarkson’s remarks on the medallion’s impact, noting that they were likely to have “an Effect equal to that of the best written Pamphlet, in procuring Favour to these oppressed People.”40

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robably made for a Virginia sea captain (a ship decorates the other side), this jug is decorated with the seal of the commonwealth of Virginia.

Designed in 1776, the seal shows, according to its designers, “Virtus, the genius of the Commonwealth, dressed like an Amazon, resting on a spear with one hand, and holding a sword in the other, and trading on TYRANNY, represented by a man prostrate, a crown fallen from his head, a broken chain in his left hand, and a scourge in his right… the word VIRGINIA over the head of VIRTUS; and underneath, the words Sic semper tyrannis [thus always to tyrants].”

Jug Made in Liverpool or Staffordshire, England, 1795–1810 Made of Creamware 7.25” Tall Museum Purchase with Funds Provided by W. Groke Mickey

The seal was a symbol of identity and pride for the citizens of one of the largest states in the United States.

Reflecting Virginia’s place in the new nation, however, it is surrounded by the chain of states, a symbol of national unity. Comprising 13 conjoined links, each emblazoned with the name of one of the states, the chain of states was designed

by Benjamin Franklin in 1776 for use on continental currency, but it quickly became a popular symbol of unity and interdependence.41

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Two-Handled Cup Made in Jingdezhen, Decorated in Guangzhou (Canton), China, 1796–1797 Made of Hard-Paste Porcelain 2.75” Tall Mr. and Mrs. Euchlin D. Reeves Collection in Memory of Mrs. Chester Green Reeves and Miss Lizzie H. Dyer

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he official symbol of the United States, the Great Seal, decorates this cup. Adopted in 1782, the seal was described by Charles Thompson, the Secretary of the Congress, and one of its designers: The pieces [alternating red and white vertical stripes] represent the several states all joined in one solid compact entire, supporting a Chief, which unite the whole & represents Congress. The Motto alludes to this union. The pales in the arms are kept closely united by the Chief and the Chief depends on that union & the strength resulting from it for its support, to denote the Confederacy of the United States of America & the Preservation of their union through Congress.

The colours of the pales are those used in the flag of the United States of America; White signifies purity and innocence, Red, hardiness and valour, and Blue, the colour of the Chief signifies vigilance, perseverance & justice. The Olive branch and arrows denote the power of peace & war which is exclusively vested in Congress. The Constellation (the stars) denotes a new State taking its place and rank among other sovereign powers. The Escutcheon is born on the breast of an American Eagle without any other supporters to denote that the United States of America ought to rely on its own virtue.

The cup was commissioned by Henry Smith, a China Trade merchant from Providence, Rhode Island. Smith was the supercargo, or merchant, on the George Washington, which made two voyages to China, in 1794 and 1796. In addition to buying goods for the ship’s investors, he also bought souvenirs for himself, including the tea and coffee set from which this cup comes.

While it is unknown where Euchlin and Louise Herreshoff Reeves got this cup, it is quite possible that Louise inherited it. She was a native of Providence and a descendant of John Brown and his wife, Sarah, who was Henry Smith’s aunt.42

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ecorated with the arms of Dom Frei António de São José de Castro (1745–1814), the bishop of Oporto, Portugal, this plate comes from what must have been one of the richest and most elaborate Chinese armorial porcelain services ever made.

The illegitimate son of the Count of Resende, de Castro joined the Catholic monastic order of the Carthusians. According to one contemporary, “his modest virtues, and the influence of his name, raised him successively to the dignity of principal superior of his order, and to the episcopal see of Oporto” in 1798. He remained in Oporto until 1808, when he moved to Lisbon to assume a post in the government and to become the patriarch of the city (a clerical position he never assumed, possibly because of his illegitimate birth).

Plate

with the Arms of Oporto Made in Jingdezhen, Decorated in Guangzhou (Canton), China, 1800–1814 Made of Hard-Paste Porcelain 9.75” Diameter Gift of Ms. Lacy Crain and Mr. James W. Whitehead III, in Honor of Mr. and Mrs. James Walter Whitehead

His arms combine the secular and sacred.

The shield shows the arms of the de Castro family, above which is a panel with gold stars on a blue ground, which is the insignia of the Carthusian order.

The arms themselves are surmounted by a bishop’s hat with tassels. Peeking out from behind the shield are a bishop’s staff and crozier.43

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Punch Bowl Made in Jingdezhen, Decorated in Guangzhou (Canton), China, about 1800 Made of Hard-Paste Porcelain 15.75” Diameter Mr. and Mrs. Euchlin D. Reeves Collection in Memory of Mrs. Chester Green Reeves and Miss Lizzie H. Dyer

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view of the waterfront of the Chinese port of Guangzhou, known to Europeans and Americans as Canton, encircles this punch bowl. Visible are the European and American trading centers, known as factories or hongs, which served as warehouse, office, and home for foreign merchants. Each was identified by the national flag of its occupants.

Known as hong bowls, they were popular among China Trade merchants and sea captains, who bought them as souvenirs and as gifts. Dutch East India Company officials noted in 1780 that hong bowls “must be considered as rarities, which one makes a present of to friends.” John Green, the captain of Empress of China, the first American ship to go to China, must have had the same idea in mind when he bought four, paying $5.50 each.

It is probably not coincidental that the consummate China Trade souvenir was a punch bowl. Punch was developed by English China Trade merchants in the mid-17th century in Southeast Asia and has a long association with sailors. The name is thought to come from either the Persian word panj or the Hindu word pànch, both of which mean “five,” and which refer to the five ingredients of punch: alcohol, water, citrus juice, sugar, and spices.

This bowl was one of the stars of Euchlin and Louise Reeves’ collection. They purchased it in 1954 from Elinor Gordon, one of the leading dealers in Chinese export porcelain in the second half of the 20th century, for $1,400.44

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Plate Made in Jingdezhen, China, 1800–1870 Made of Hard-Paste Porcelain 8.75” Diameter Museum Purchase

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his plate is decorated in the Canton pattern, the most common design found on Chinese export porcelain in the 19th century.

Its name comes from the Chinese port of Canton, known in China as Guangzhou, and consists of a simply sketched landscape with mountains, a meandering river, buildings, and a bridge. Its earliest known reference dates to 1797, and by 1805, merchants were referring to it as “blue & white of a landscape Pattern & of a good but common kind.” Sturdy and inexpensive, yet still carrying some of the cachet of imported Asian luxuries, the pattern proved incredibly popular.

This particular plate comes from a service that descended in the family of William Price (1869–1948), the African-American valet and butler of Custis Lee, the son of Robert and Mary Lee and president of Washington and Lee University from 1871 to 1897.

Upon his marriage in 1895, Price received the service, which consisted of a mismatched set of Chinese blue-and-white porcelain, from Custis Lee. The porcelain was almost certainly a hand-me-down from Custis, rather than a new purchase, and had probably come to him from his parents. It may be part of the “crockery” that Robert E. Lee wrote of being sent to Lexington from Derwent, the house that a friend had lent to the Lees for the summer of 1865. They had lost most of their possessions when their home, Arlington, was confiscated at the start of the Civil War, and they furnished their home in Lexington with the few pieces they had salvaged and with gifts from family and friends.45

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n elaborate allegorical image showing George Washington being elevated to god-like status decorates this jug. The image is based on John James Barralet’s (c. 1747–1815) popular engraving, The Apotheosis of Washington, which was published in 1802. One of the prints made its way to England, where it was copied by the Herculaneum Pottery, which specialized in producing wares for the American market.

Barralet provided a key to the image’s symbolism: “The subject — Gen. Washington raised from the Tomb, by the Poetical and Historical Genius, assisted by Immortality — at his feet America weeping over his Armour, on the opposite side an Indian crouched in surly sorrow, in the third ground the Mental Virtues, Faith Hope and Charity.”

Jug Made at the Herculaneum Pottery, Liverpool, England, 1802–1810 Made of Creamware 11.5” Tall Museum Purchase with Funds Provided by W. Groke Mickey

Americans showed their reverence for Washington by commissioning paintings, prints, and objects decorated with his image, especially after his death in 1799. According to Paul Svinin, a Russian diplomat of the early 19th century, “Every American considers it his sacred duty to have a likeness of Washington in his home, just as we have images of God’s saints.”46

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Plate Made by Enoch Wood & Sons, Staffordshire, England, 1830–1848 Made of Lead-Glazed Earthenware 9” Diameter Museum Purchase

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homas Jefferson called Natural Bridge “the most sublime of nature’s work.” Standing 215 feet high, the arch is all that remains of the roof of a cavern carved in the soft limestone by Cedar Creek.

The namesake of Rockbridge County, Natural Bridge, like Niagara Falls, became a major tourist attraction in the 19th century and was seen as a rival to the architectural wonders of Europe. “The superb creations of Nature that distinguish our country above all other,” wrote one awe-inspired viewer, “show that Nature has wrought with a bolder hand in this land than in those that boast an older civilization.”

Natural Bridge was celebrated with numerous prints and paintings, one of which was adapted by the English pottery Enoch Wood & Sons, which produced a wide range of printed earthenwares for the American market. This plate was part of their “Celtic China” series, which depicted natural and man-made landmarks of the United States.

It came in black, blue, brown, green, mulberry, pink, and purple, and was so named because the pieces were made in part of Welsh clay.47

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tamped “ROCKBRIDGE,” this large jar is a product of one of the largest industries in 19th-century Rockbridge County: a pottery that produced jars, jugs, churns, milk pans, and tobacco pipes for local and regional markets.

The pottery was established in the 1820s in the village of Bustleburg. By about 1840, it had either relocated or opened a second kiln in nearby Rockbridge Baths. The site in Bustleburg closed sometime after 1840, and the site in Rockbridge Baths remained in operation until 1882, when it closed in the face of competition from glass, metal, and ceramic containers made by larger, more industrialized manufacturers.

Jar Made in Rockbridge County, Virginia, 1830–1850 Made of Salt-Glazed Stoneware 16” Tall; Museum Purchase with Partial Funds Provided by the Estate of Mary Hilliard

Jars like this stored preserved meats, fruit, or vegetables. Its shape and decoration are similar to stoneware made in New York and reflect the involvement of John Morgan, a New York-trained potter who worked at the pottery in Bustleburg from at least 1830, and Henry Morgan, who was probably his son, who worked at Bustleburg and managed the Rockbridge Baths site from about 1840.48

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Vase Made in Jingdezhen, China, about 1850 Made of Hard-Paste Porcelain 24.5” Tall Museum Purchase with Funds Provided by W. Groke Mickey

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hinese porcelain was mass-produced, with different stages of production, such as mining the clay, throwing the vessels, and firing the kiln, divided among different semiskilled workers.

François Xavier d’Entrecolles (1664–1741), a Jesuit missionary who worked in Jingdezhen, the city where most of the porcelain used in China and exported all over the globe was made, reported that “a large number of workers . . . each have their appointed task.

One piece of porcelain, before it enters the door of the furnace, passes through the hands of more than twenty people without any confusion. No doubt the Chinese have learned that the work is done faster this way.”

He went on to add, “Some affirm that a piece of China-ware, after it is baked, has passed the hands of seventy Workmen.” These methods of mass production allowed Chinese potters to produce large numbers of pieces quickly, uniformly, and affordably, enabling them to supply the voracious market for porcelain both at home and abroad.

This vase, which is one of a pair, is covered in vignettes showing different stages of the process. It is among a number of pieces decorated with scenes of porcelain production that were made for people interested in seeing how porcelain was made. Among these may have been someone in the Chinese royal household, as a vase of the same design (but much more finely painted) survives in the imperial collections in Beijing.49

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Pitcher Made by the United States Pottery Company, Bennington, Vermont, 1852–1858 Made of Parian (Unglazed Porcelain) 8” Tall Museum Purchase with Funds Provided by W. Groke Mickey

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ramatically molded to look like water cascading over rocks, the pitcher is thought to have been inspired by Niagara Falls, one of the great natural wonders of the United States. Awareness of the falls grew in the first half of the 19th century, as paintings and prints disseminated its image, and as bridges, hotels, and other visitor amenities brought increasing numbers of tourists to the falls themselves.

The pitcher is made of parian, an unglazed porcelain whose appearance and name were inspired by statuary marble from the Greek island of Paros. Developed in England in 1845, it was copied in America by about 1851. Many of the products of the United States Pottery Co. were copies of English wares, but this piece was an original American design.50

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his is one of the 24 egg cups that were part of an enormous dinner, tea, and breakfast service that was commissioned

by Mary Todd Lincoln (1818–1882) in 1861 for the White House.

Elaborately decorated with an American eagle and a rich purple-red and gold border, the service was stylish, exotic, and very modern. The gold border was in what was called the Alhambra style, inspired by the Islamic architecture of Spain, and the purple-red color was known as solferino, and had just been invented by French chemists in 1859.

Egg Cup Made in France, Decorated by E.V. Haughwout & Co., New York, 1861 Made of Hard-Paste Porcelain 3.5” Tall Mr. and Mrs. Euchlin D. Reeves Collection in Memory of Mrs. Chester Green Reeves and Miss Lizzie H. Dyer

In addition to being fashionable, purple was also Mary Lincoln’s favorite color. She often wore purple, used the color for drapery in the White House, and even dressed the servants in “mulberrycolored livery.”

The service, which was described in the press as “splendid,” was made in France and decorated in New York by painters working for E.V. Haughwout & Co. It contained 666 pieces and cost $3,195. Though the usual congressional appropriation for the White House paid for it, Mary Lincoln’s lavish expenses led to considerable criticism, especially because they came at a time when the United States was entering the Civil War.51

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Vases Made in Limoges, France, probably decorated in New York, New York, about 1860 Made of Hard-Paste Porcelain 19.25” Tall Museum Purchase with Funds Provided by W. Groke Mickey

C

ombining delicately sculpted figures, two different types of gilding, and rich enamel decoration, these vases are a tour-de-force of the potter’s art. They also convey a powerful political message; the figures are characters from Uncle Tom’s Cabin, one of the most eloquent and influential attacks on slavery ever written.

Written by Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811–1896) and published in 1852, it was one of the best-selling American novels of the 19th century. Within a year, 310,000 copies had been sold in the United States, and more than two million copies worldwide.

Its illustration of the humanity of enslaved African-Americans and the cruelty of slavery was one of many factors that helped turn American opinion in favor of abolition. While Abraham Lincoln’s description of Stowe as “the little woman who made this great war” is almost certainly apocryphal, it does reflect the book’s influence.

The vases illustrate two of the key moments in the novel: Uncle Tom

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being draped in garlands of flowers by his owner’s daughter, Eva, reflecting his humanity and Christ-like nature, and Eliza carrying her son, Harry, over the frozen Ohio River to freedom, reflecting the cruelty of slavery.

The figures are part of an outpouring of books, plays, music, prints, and objects produced in the 1850s and depicting characters in the novel. As an article in the abolitionist newspaper The Liberator reported: It should be noted, among other favorable signs of the times, that artists, of all grades, now find it not only a congenial, but also a remunerative work to represent the creations of Mrs. Stowe’s genius in pictures and statues … I infer, from seeing these elegant and expensive works in the shop windows … not only that the general heart of humanity has been touched by them as by their predecessors, but that they have an established market value, and that people of wealth and taste now begin to seek such works as the ornaments of their parlors and chambers.52

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Vase Made by the Worcester Royal Porcelain Company, Worcester, England, 1872 Made of Soft-Paste Porcelain 10.5” Tall Gift of Betsy Ruehl

I

n November of 1872, an English art critic enthusiastically described the Worcester Royal Porcelain Company’s display at the Second International Exhibition in London:

The Royal Porcelain Works at Worcester exhibit some very remarkable productions. It will be at once seen that they are adaptations of the Japanese; they have suddenly become the fashion, and the works at Worcester cannot produce them fast enough. One peculiarity attached to this set of vases is that their decoration illustrates the process of their own manufacture as conducted in the East.

What the critic was describing was a set of six vases (from which this one comes) decorated with scenes of porcelain production in China.

The vases were designed

by James Hadley (1837–1903), Royal Worcester’s chief modeler, who used as inspiration illustrations from the first book in Europe devoted to Chinese porcelain, Histoire et Fabrication de la Porcelaine Chinoise (History of the Manufacture of Chinese Porcelain), published in Paris in 1856. It in turn was a loose translation of the Jingdezhen taolu (Records of Jingdezhen Ceramics), published in Jingdezhen, China, in 1815.

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This vase illustrates porcelain being glazed, and is based on plate 10 from the Histoire.

Only a few of these vases are known today, suggesting they were not big sellers (not surprising, considering that relatively few people probably wanted a vase with an industrial scene on their mantle). But the vases were probably not designed to be a commercial success, but rather something that would catch the attention of critics, writers, and judges at exhibitions in order to burnish Royal Worcester’s reputation as a company that excelled in ceramics technology, design, and production.

In this goal the vases were a success; critics described them as “striking” and “novel,” and they probably helped Royal Worcester tie for first place at the International Exhibition in Vienna in 1873.53

Plate 10, Louis Alphonse Salvetat, Histoire et Fabrication de la Porcelaine Chinoise (Paris 1856).

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Dish Made in Jingdezhen, China, 1875–1908 Made of Hard-Paste Porcelain 28.25” Diameter Gift of H.F. Lenfest

T

his massive dish, more than two feet in diameter, is one of the largest pieces in the Reeves Collection and a masterpiece of the potter’s art. It was made for one of China’s most famous women: the Empress Dowager Cixi (1835–1908).

Cixi ruled China as regent from 1862 to 1908, first for her son, the Tongzhi Emperor (1856–1875), and then for her nephew, the Guangxu Emperor (1871–1908). She ruled during one of the most turbulent periods of China’s history, as the country suffered conflicts like the Taiping Rebellion (which saw the kilns in Jingdezhen destroyed), the Boxer Rebellion, and the Sino-Japanese War. This is one of a number of enormous dishes Chuxiu Gong (Made for the Palace of Gathered Elegance), one of the palaces in the Forbidden City in Beijing and home to Cixi for part of her life. The mark on the underside, which reads chuxiugong zhi (Made for the Palace of Gathered Elegance), is written in seal script, an ancient style of Chinese calligraphy often used for formal inscriptions.

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Possibly made to serve lavish amounts of food at a banquet or possibly made just for show, the dish is decorated with stylized lotus blossoms, one of the most popular subjects in Chinese design. The lotus is an emblem of Buddhism, and a symbol of purity and integrity.54

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ysters have long been a popular food, and never more so than in the second half of the 19th century, when railroads, refrigeration, and canning made transporting the shellfish easy. This inspired the creation of plates to serve the delicacy. As one etiquette manual advised, while any plate could be used to serve oysters, “more elegance is expressed by the use of plates designed expressly for them.”

Among the most elegant oyster plates made is this one, designed for one of the most prominent interiors in the United States, the White House. It was designed in 1879 by Theodore Davis (1840– 1894), a journalist and illustrator for Harper’s Weekly, who was asked by the First Lady, Lucy Hayes (1831–1889), to help design a new state dinner service. Wanting to create something original and American, Davis designed 15 different shapes that were decorated with 130 different scenes of American plants, animals, and landscapes. Among these was this plate, of which Davis wrote, “My original intention was a simple oyster plate that should be rich and quite different from any now in use.”

Oyster Plate Made by Haviland & Company, Limoges, France, 1880–1885 Made of Hard-Paste Porcelain 8.5” Diameter Mr. and Mrs. Euchlin D. Reeves Collection in Memory of Mrs. Chester Green Reeves and Miss Lizzie H. Dyer

This particular plate does not actually come from the presidential service (which is still at the White House), but from one of up to 25 duplicate services Haviland made, partly to defray the cost overruns of the original service. They assured prospective buyers that the duplicates were “precisely the same as the service made expressly for the White House, with the omission of the eagle and coat of arms, which is one of the decorations of the back of the first set.”55

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Cachepot Designed and Decorated by Henrietta Bailey, Newcomb Pottery, New Orleans, Louisiana, 1912–1926 Made of Earthenware 7” Tall Found in Collection

T

his cachepot was made at the Newcomb Pottery, part of H. Sophie Newcomb Memorial College in New Orleans (which was founded by the same family who built Newcomb Hall at Washington and Lee). The pottery was founded in 1895, at the height of the arts and crafts movement, and remained in operation until 1940. Ellsworth Woodward, the director of art instruction, outlined its main goal: “I am hopeful that we can here provide a livelihood for that large number of women who have artistic tastes, and who do not find the schoolroom or the stenographer’s desk or the counter altogether congenial.”

Newcomb developed the soft, muted colors and matte glaze seen on this piece in 1910, and combined with the popular decorative motifs of flowers, trees hung with Spanish moss, and moon-lit landscapes, created pieces that painted a romantic picture of the American South. As Mary Sheerer, one of Newcomb Pottery’s first instructors, put it, “The whole thing was to be a southern product, made of southern clays, by southern artists, decorated with southern subjects.”

Henrietta Bailey (1874–1950), who designed and decorated this piece, was one of Newcomb’s success stories and most prolific potters. She graduated from Newcomb in 1903, was a graduate art student for the next two years, and worked at the pottery from 1904 until 1926, when she joined the faculty as an art instructor. She retired in 1938.

It is not known exactly how this piece came to the Reeves, but it was likely a gift from an alumnus of W&L, who may have received it as a present, as Newcomb advertised their wares as “IDEAL PRESENTS For Weddings, Birthdays and Graduations.”56

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T

his tea bowl and saucer are not what they seem. At first glance, they look like Chinese export porcelain made in the late 18th or early 19th century and decorated with a figure of Fame holding the badge of the Society of the Cincinnati (see p. 42).

But they are fakes — or at least the decoration is. Stylistic and scientific analysis shows that the overglaze enamels are almost certainly 20th century in date, a conclusion strengthened by the ghosts of earlier decoration just visible beneath the eagle and Fame.

Tea Bowl and Saucer Made in Jingdezhen, China, 1760–1775, Decorated in the United States, about 1925 Made of Hard-Paste Porcelain 5.5” Diameter (saucer) Gift of Richard and Catharine Hubbard

These pieces are what Homer Eaton Keyes (1875–1938), the first editor of The Magazine Antiques and an expert on Chinese export porcelain, warned about when he wrote in 1933, “The most dangerous imitations of Chinese Lowestoft are those achieved by removing the decoration from genuine old pieces or Oriental ware and substituting a rarer design that materially enhances their apparent value.” That is what happened with these; the original decoration was removed with abrasion and acid, and then new decoration was added.

As interest in Chinese export porcelain made for the American market grew in the first decades of the 20th century, demand increased, supply remained static, and prices rose accordingly. Unsurprisingly, some unscrupulous artisans and dealers began to produce and sell fakes to take advantage of this growing market.57

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Dish Made by Shoji Hamada, Mashiko, Japan, 1955–1965 Made of Stoneware 10.5” Diameter Museum Purchase with Funds Provided by Hal Higginbotham and W. Groke Mickey

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his dish was made by one of the leading potters of the 20th century, Shoji Hamada (1894–1978). Considered one of the founders of the studio pottery movement, he combined traditional Japanese and English potting traditions.

The dish is decorated with a broken sugarcane motif, which was inspired by Hamada’s time in Okinawa. He recalled, “The sugarcane fields stretching endlessly in front of my workshop inspired me to create a pattern, which has continued to capture my interest, to my surprise, for these many years, without my tiring of it. I drew the cane leaves, stem, and top as they appear after being stricken by the violence of a typhoon.…

Now this pattern has become my trademark.”58

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nscribed “Made in China” in both English and Chinese, this ceramic sculpture comments on the global economy of the 21st century and on the United States’ dependence on products made in China. A copy of an 18th-century antique, it is also a reminder that the West’s trade imbalance with China is not new.

American Pickle also reflects the vast influence that Chinese porcelain has had on European and American ceramics. It is a re-creation of the most ambitious porcelain objects known to have been made in 18th-century America, a pickle stand (which held pickles, relishes, or other foods) made between 1770 and 1772 by the American Porcelain Manufactory, in Philadelphia. Often known today by the names of the proprietors, Bonnin and Morris, it was one of the earliest porcelain factories in America. The American stand was itself copied from English pickle stands, which in turn were inspired by Chinese blue-and-white porcelain.59

American Pickle Made by Michelle Erickson, Hampton, Virginia, 2008 Made of Porcelain 8” Wide Museum Purchase with Funds Provided by Herbert G. McKay

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Endnotes 1. James W. Whitehead, A Fragile Union: The Story of Louise Herreshoff (Celeste Dervaes Whitehead, 2006), 112.

2. Laure Stevens-Lubin, “The Collecting Call,” W&L: The Washington and Lee University Alumni Magazine (hereafter cited as W&L), Winter 2009, 35.

3. “Reeves Collection in Pennsylvania,” W&L, May 1980, p. 26; “W&L in Taiwan,” W&L, September 1978, 1.

4.“A Dream Comes True,” W&L, October 1982, 2.

5. Whitehead, A Fragile Union, vii.

6. Thomas V. Litzenburg, Jr., in collaboration with Ann T. Bailey, Chinese Export Porcelain in the Reeves Center Collection at Washington and Lee University (London: Third Millennium Publishing, 2003), 7.

7. Stevens-Lubin, “The Collecting Call,” 30.

8. “A Dream Comes True,” 2.

9. Mission Statement, University Collections of Art 72

and History, https://www.wlu. edu/university-collections, accessed March 24, 2017.

10. The Chinese dish is illustrated in Litzenburg, Chinese Export Porcelain in the Reeves Center Collection, 21; Maura Rinaldi, Kraak Porcelain: A Moment in the History of Trade (London: Bamboo Publishing, Ltd, 1989), 60-61; Teresa Canepa, Kraak Porcelain (London: Jorge Welsh Books, 2008), 17; quotation and translation in Suzanne Lambooy, “Imitation and Inspiration: The artistic rivalry between Delft earthenware and Chinese porcelain,” Chinese and Japanese Porcelain for the Dutch Golden Age, Jan van Campen and Titus Eliëns, eds. (Zwolle: Waanders, 2014), 231–248.

11. Jerzy Gawronski, ed., Amsterdam Ceramics: A City’s History and an Archaeological Ceramics Catalog, 1175–2011 (Amsterdam: Lubberhuizen, 2012), 210; C.L. van der PijlKetel, ed., The Ceramic Load of the Witte Leeuw (Amsterdam: Rijksmuseum, 1982), 143–44; Colin Sheaf and Richard Kilburn, The Hatcher Porcelain Cargoes: The Complete Record (Oxford, England:

Phaidon, 1988), 25-30, 36; T. Volker, Porcelain and the Dutch East India Company (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1954), 29; Julia B. Curtis, “Chinese Ceramics and the Dutch Connection in Early SeventeenthCentury Virginia,” Vereniging van Vrienden der Aziatische Kunst (Amsterdam: Mededelingenblad, 1985), 6–13.

The sites include Jamestown Rediscovery, Pit 4 ca.1610; The Maine (4); Walter Aston Site; Kingsmill: The Helmet Site; Kingsmill Tenement; Jordan’s Journey: PG302 (5), PG307; and Flowerdew Hundred (PG65).

See www.preservationvirginia. org/rediscovery/page.php?page_ id=292 (accessed February 22, 2012).

Cynthia Viallé, “Camel cups, parrot cups, and other Chinese Kraak porcelain items in Dutch trade records, 1583–1623,” in Jan van Campen and Titus Eliëns, eds., Chinese and Japanese Porcelain for the Dutch Golden Age, 37–52, 44.

12. Silvia Malaguzzi, Food and Feasting in Art (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2006), 234, 229; Lucia Impelluso, Nature and its Symbols (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2003), 145–48.

13. Illustration in Litzenburg, Chinese Export Porcelain in the Reeves Center Collection, 23; Stephen Little, Chinese Ceramics of the Transitional Period (New York: China Institute, 1984), 64–65; Julia Curtis, Chinese Porcelains of the Seventeenth Century (New York: China Institute, 1995), 27–29, 142–43; quotation in Julia Hochstrasser, Still Life and Trade in the Dutch Golden Age (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007), 136.

14. David Gaimster, German Stoneware, 1200–1900 (London: The British Museum Press, 1997), 32; Christiaan Jörg, Fine & Curious: Japanese Export Porcelain in Dutch Collections (Amsterdam: Hotei Publications, 2003), 168; Voyage of Old-Imari Porcelain (Arita: Kyushu Ceramics Museum, 2000), 84; Barbara Brennan Ford and Oliver R. Impey, Japanese Art from the Gerry Collection in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1989), 73; Jack Hinton, The Art of German Stoneware (Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2012), 37.

15. Illustration in Litzenburg, Chinese Export Porcelain in the Reeves Center Collection, 30; Patricia Ferguson, Ceramics: 400 Years of British Collecting in 100

Masterpieces (London: Philip Wilson Publishers, 2016), 26–27; Rose Kerr and John Ayers, Blanc de Chine: Porcelain from Dehua (Chicago: Art Media Resources, Ltd., 2002), 9; John Ayers, Blanc de Chine: Divine Images in Porcelain (New York: China Institute Gallery, 2002), 31, 99.

16. Illustration in Jörg, Fine & Curious, 78; Menno Fitski, Kakiemon Porcelain: A Handbook (Leiden: Leiden University Press, 2011), 77, 153; Anette Loesch, Ulrich Pietsch, and Frederick Reichel, Porcelain Collection Dresden: Guide to the Permanent Collection (Dresden: Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, 1998), 112, 172; Genviève LeDue, Porcelaine tender de Chantilly au XVIIIe siècle (Paris 1996), 84; Elizabeth Adams, Chelsea Porcelain (London: The British Museum Press, 2001), 82.

17. C.J.A. Jörg, “Japanese Apothecary Bottles,” in The “Hyakunenan” Journal of Porcelain Study (No. 7, Summer 1991), 4–5; Harold Cook, Matters of Exchange: Commerce, Medicine, and Science in the Dutch Golden Age (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007), 339, 358, 361.

Ten Rhijne’s book, Dissertatio de Arthritide: Mantissa Schematica: De Acupunctura: Et Orationes Tres, was published in London in 1683.

18. Sarah Fayen Scarlett, “The Chinese Scholar Pattern: Style, Merchant Identity, and the English Imagination,” in Ceramics in America Journal (Milwaukee: Chipstone Foundation, 2011), 3–45; Curtis, Chinese Porcelains of the Seventeenth Century, 17-21; Louis Lipski and Michael Archer, Dated English Delftware (London: Sothebys Publication, 1984), 52.

19. Jörg, Fine & Curious, 91–93; Friedrich Reichel, Early Japanese Porcelain (London: Orbis Publishing, 1981), plate 51.

20. Robin Hildyard, Browne Muggs: English Brown Stoneware (London: Victoria and Albert Museum, 1985), 10, 87; Teresa Canape, Linglong (London: Jorge Welsh Oriental Porcelain and Works of Art, 2004), 13.

21. Meredith Chilton, Fired By Passion: Vienna Baroque Porcelain of Claudius Innocentius Du Paquier (Stuttgart: Arnoldsche Art Publishers, 2009), I:190–91, II:836, III:1289–90, with quotation in II:800.

22.“Memoirs of Richard Gough, Esq. and of His Father,” in Stebbing Shaw, The History and Antiquities of Staffordshire, 2 vols.

(London: Printed by J. Nichols, 1798–1801), extract reprinted in The Gentleman’s Magazine (March 73

1809), 195; David Sanctuary Howard, Chinese Armorial Porcelain (London: Faber and Faber, 1974), 165–66.

23. Julia Weber, “A Detective Story: Meissen porcelains copying East Asian Models. Fakes or originals in their own right?” in Art Antiques London 2012 Catalog, Houghton International Fairs, 2012, 41-49; Claus Bolz, “Japanisches Palais-Inventar 1770 und Turmzimmer-Inventar 1769” in Keramos 153 (July 1996), 3-118, 53 (thanks to Julia Weber of the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden for this reference); Ulrich Pietsch, Early Meissen Porcelain. The Wark Collection from the Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens (London: Giles, 2011), 279.

24. David Sanctuary Howard, China for the West (London: Sotheby’s Parke Bernet, 1978), II:413–15; Arthur Oswald, “Okeover Hall, Staffordshire I,” Country Life CXXXV, no. 3490 (January 23, 1964), 172–76, and “Okeover Hall, Staffordshire II,” Country Life CXXXV, no. 3491 (January 30, 1964), 224–28; Christopher Hartop, A Noble Feast: English Silver from the Gerome and Rita Ganz Collection (Richmond: Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, 2007), 43–44.

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25. Alfred Spencer, ed., Memoirs of William Hickey (London: Hurst & Blackett, Ltd., 1913), I:198; Kee Il Choi, “Hong Bowls and the Landscape of the China Trade,” The Magazine Antiques 156, no. 4 (October 1999), 500–509; Howard, Chinese Armorial Porcelain, 227, 235, 329.

The engraving is signed “Pine fecit,” which may be John Pine, an influential London engraver; The London Magazine: or, Gentleman’s Monthly Intelligencer (London: Printed by C. Ackers, 1732), title page. Thanks to Arianna India Dial, W&L Class of 2017, for helping discover this design source.

26. Falconer Madan, The Gresleys of Drawklowe (Oxford, 1899), 104, 110–12; Howard, Chinese Armorial Porcelain, 330; George Marshall, “Armorial China,” The Antiquary IV, no. 19 (July 1881), 1–4.

27. Anette Loesch, Ulrich Pietsch, Friedrich Reichel, Porcelain Collection Dresden; Guide to the Permanent Collection (Dresden: Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, 1998), no page number (Swan Service entry); Ulrich Pietsch, Early Meissen Porcelain: The Wark Collection from the Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens

(Jacksonville: The Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens, 2011), 468; Maureen CassidyGeiger, “From Barlow to Buggel; A New Source for the Swan Service,” Keramos 19 (1988), 63–68; Whitehead, A Fragile Union, 141.

28. Fitski, Kakiemon Porcelain, 72, 157; Elizabeth Adams, Chelsea Porcelain (London: The British Museum Press, 2001), 78.

29. Patrice Valfré, Yixing: Teapots for Europe (Poligny: Exotic Line, 2000), 92–96; William Sargent, Treasures of Chinese Export Ceramics from the Peabody Essex Museum (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012), 232; Joyce Volk, “A Warner House Search…” in Robert Hunter, ed., Ceramics in America (Milwaukee: Chipstone Foundation, 2001), 236–38.

30. Several similar Japanese plates are known, dating as early as 1670–90 and as late as the early 18th century; see Fitski, Kakiemon Porcelain, 82; Jörg, Fine & Curious, 146; and Oliver Impey, Japanese Export Porcelain (Amsterdam: Hotei Publishing, 2002), 117.

L.G. Pine, The New Extinct Peerage 1884–1971: Containing Extinct, Abeyant, Dormant

and Suspended Peerages With Genealogies and Arms (London Heraldry Today, 1972), 211; Patricia Ferguson, “ ‘Japan China’ taste and elite ceramic consumption in 18th-century England: revising the narrative,” in The Country House: Material Culture and Consumption, Jon Stobart and Andrew Hann, eds.

(Swindon: Historic England, 2016), 113-122; David Howard, A Tale of Three Cities: Canton, Shanghai & Hong Kong (London: Sotheby’s, 1997), 62.

31. Anonymous, The AntiGallican Privateer (London: J. Reason, 1757), 4.

32. H.V. Bowen, War and British Society 1688–1815 (Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 7; Lord Holdernesse to Andrew Mitchell, September 18, 1756, quoted in Giles MacDonogh, Frederick the Great: A Life in Deed and Letters (New York: Macmillan, 2001), 251; Janine Skerry and Suzanne Findlen Hood, Salt-Glazed Stoneware in Early America (Williamsburg: Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 2009), 139.

33. Peter Williams and Pat Halfpenny, Further Selections from the Henry H. Weldon Collection

(London: Sotheby’s Publications, 2000), 54–55; Robin Reilly, Wedgwood: The New Illustrated Dictionary (Woodbridge: Antique Collectors’ Club, 1995), 98; Sarah Richards, Eighteenth-century Ceramics: Products for a Civilized Society (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1999), 182–94; David Barker, William Greatbatch, a Staffordshire Potter (London: Jonathan Horne Publications, 1991), 91.

34. Howard, Chinese Armorial Porcelain, 542.

35. Jean-Baptiste du Halde, General History of China (London: Printed for J Watts, 1741), II:323; Luisa Vinhais and Jorge Welsh, eds., A Time and Place: Views and Perspectives on Chinese Export Art (London: Jorge Welsh—Research and Publishing, 2016), 149–52.

36. Illustration in Litzenburg, Chinese Export Porcelain in the Reeves Center Collection, 123; Susan Detweiler, George Washington’s Chinaware (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1982), 96, 220; Robert E.L. deButts, Jr., “Mary Custis Lee’s ‘Reminiscences of the War,’ ” The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 109, no. 3 (2001), 316–17; John Perry, Lady of Arlington: The Life of Mrs. Robert E. Lee (Sisters, Oregon: Multnomah Publishers,

2001), 230, 244; Douglas Southall Freeman, Lee (New York: Touchstone, 1997), 553, 554.

37. David Peters, Sèvres Plates and Services of the 18th Century (Little Berkhamsted, 2005), 4:825–26.

Fitzgibbon to Eden, 26 August 1786; to Eden, 4 August 1789, 104; to Eden, 25 May 1787, 58, in D.A. Fleming and A.W. Malcomson, “A Volley of Execrations:” The Letters and Papers of John FitzGibbon, Earl of Clare, 1772–1802 (Dublin: Irish Manuscripts Commission, 2005), 51.

38. Jonathan Rickard, Mocha and Related Dipped Wares, 1770–1939 (Lebanon, New Hampshire: University Press of New England, 2006), 25–30; Donald Carpentier and Jonathan Rickard, “Slip Decoration in the Age of Industrialization,” Ceramics in America 2001 (Milwaukee: The Chipstone Foundation, 2001), 115–34; Sumpter Priddy, American Fancy: Exuberance in the Arts, 1790–1840 (Milwaukee: The Chipstone Foundation: 2004), xxi–xxxiii, 77–79, 170–75.

39. Ian Jenkins and Kim Sloan, Vases & Volcanoes: Sir William Hamilton and His Collection (London: British Museum Press, 1996), 40–64, 75

146–59; Patricia Ferguson, “Wedgwood, Boulton, & Henry Hoare II: Patronage of the Antique Taste at Stourhead,” The Magazine Antique (June 2006), 95–101; Pierre-Francois Hughes D’Hancarville, Collection of Etruscan, Greek, and Roman Antiquities (Köln: Taschen, 2004), 102–103.

40. Thomas Clarkson, History of the Rise, Progress, and Accomplishment of the Abolition of African Slave Trade (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, 1808), II:191–92; B. Franklin to J. Wedgwood, May 15, 1788, quoted in Gaye Blake Roberts, “Josiah Wedgwood and Slavery,” Transactions of the English Ceramics Circle 20 (Part 2, 2008), 339–47.

41. “Proceedings of the Convention of Delegates Held at the Capitol, in the City of Williamsburg, in the Colony of Virginia” (Williamsburg: Alexander Purdie, 1776), 184–85; J.A. Leo Lemay, “The American Aesthetic of Franklin’s Visual Creations,” The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 111, no. 4 (October 1987), 465–499.

42. Illustration in Litzenburg, Chinese Export Porcelain in the Reeves Center Collection, 142; “The 76

Great Seal of the United States” (Washington: U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Public Affairs, July 2003), 5; Thomas Michie, The China Trade on Narragansett Bay (Providence: Rhode Island School of Design Museum, 1992), 9; Eleanor Gustafson, “Collector’s Notes,” The Magazine Antiques CXXXIX, no. 1 (January 1991), 86–90; Elizabeth Sharpe, “Chinese export porcelain with the arms of Rhode Island,” The Magazine Antiques CXXXIX, no.

1 (January 1991), 246–55.

43. Illustration in Litzenburg, Chinese Export Porcelain in the Reeves Center Collection, 251; Maximilien Foy, History of the War in the Peninsula under Napoleon (London, Treuttel & Würtz, 1827), II:446; Maria Antónia Pinto de Matos, The RA Collection of Chinese Ceramics (London: Jorge Welsh Books, 2011), III:220.

44. Illustration in Litzenburg, Chinese Export Porcelain in the Reeves Center Collection, 156; quotation in C.J.A. Jörg, Porcelain and the Dutch China Trade, translated from the Dutch by Patricia Wardle (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1982), 128; Philip Chadwich Foster Smith, The Empress of China (Philadelphia: Philadelphia Maritime Museum, 1984),

294; David Wondrich, Punch: The Delights (and Dangers) of the Flowing Bowl: An Anecdotal History of the Original Monarch of Mixed Drinks . . . (New York: Penguin Group, 2010), 22; Peter Brown, Come Drink the Bowl Dry: Alcoholic Liquors and Their Place in 18th Century Society (York: York Civic Trust, 1996), 45–54; Stock Cards, Elinor Gordon, 1954, Winterthur Library, Joseph Downs Collection of Manuscripts and Printed Ephemera.

45. “Price Current at Canton for Chinaware in 1797 from the Notebook of an Anonymous American Trader of Providence, Rhode Island,” Appendix II, in Jean McClure Mudge, Chinese Export Porcelain for the American Trade, 2nd ed., rev. (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1981), 259; Osmond Tiffany Jr., The Canton Chinese; or, The American’s Sojourn in the Celestial Empire (Boston: J. Monroe, 1849), 271.

Frances Ragsdale to Betty Taylor, July 26, 1998, object file, Reeves Center.

Matching pieces descended in the family of Robert E. Lee, Jr., suggesting that these pieces came from the same source; personal communication, Amanda Isaacs, assistant curator, Mount Vernon, June 2016.

Robert E. Lee, Jr., Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee (Secaucus: Blue and Grey Press, no date), 201–203.

46. Phoebe Lloyd Jacobs, “John James Barralet and the Apotheosis of George Washington,” Winterthur Portfolio 12 (1977), 115–137; Paul Svinin, Picturesque United States of America, 1811, 1812, 1813, being a memoir on Paul Svinin, Russian diplomatic officer, artist, and author, containing copious excerpts from his account of his travels in America, with fifty-two reproductions of water colors in his own sketch-book, ed. by Avrahm Yarmolinsky (New York: W.E. Rudge, 1930), 34.

47. Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia (London: John Stockdale, 1787), 35; J. David Williams, America Illustrated (Boston: DeWolfe, Fiske & Co., 1883), 1, quoted in Pamela Simpson, So Beautiful an Arch: Images of the Natural Bridge, 1787–1980 (Lexington: Washington and Lee University, 1982), 2; http://www. transcollectorsclub.org/tcc2/data/ patterns/h/harvard-college/, accessed November 30, 2016; A.W. Coysh and R.K. Henrywood, The Dictionary of Blue & White Printed Pottery (Woodbridge: Antique Collectors’ Club, 1982), 76, 408.

48. Barbara Crawford and Royster Lyle, Rockbridge County Artists & Artisans (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1995), 177.

49. Quotation in Robert Tichane, Views of a Porcelain City (Painted Post, New York: New York State Institute for Glaze Research, 1983), 70; Jean-Baptiste Du Halde, The General History of China, trans. by Richard Brookes, 4 volumes (London: J. Watts, 1741), 2:321; Ronald W. Fuchs II, “A History of Chinese Export Porcelain in Ten Objects,” in Robert Hunter, ed., Ceramics in America 2014 (Milwaukee: Chipstone Foundation, 2014), 41–60; William Sargent, Treasures of Chinese Export Ceramics from the Peabody Essex Museum (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012), 142-43; William Motley, Tyger Tyger! (Reigate, England: Cohen & Cohen, 2016), 88.

50. Patrick McGreevy, Imagining Niagara: The Meaning and Making of Niagara Falls (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1994), 7; Alice Conney Frelinghuysen, American Porcelain, 1770–1920 (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1989), 145–46.

51. Margaret Klapthor, with Betty Monkman, William

Allman, and Susan Detweiler, Official White House China (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1999), 82–84.

52. David Reynolds, Mightier than the Sword: Uncle Tom’s Cabin and the Battle for America (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2011), 128; Cindy Weinstein, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Harriet Beecher Stowe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 1–2; Jill Fenichell, “Fragile Lessons: Ceramic and Porcelain Representations of Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” in Rob Hunter, ed., Ceramics in America (Milwaukee: The Chipstone Foundation, 2006), 41–57; “Uncle Tom in Painting and Statuary,” The Liberator, December 23, 1852 (Uncle Tom’s Cabin and American Culture, http://utc.iath.virginia. edu/notices/nohhtml, accessed March 20, 2016).

53. R.W. Binns, Worcester China: A Record of the Work of Forty-five Years, 1852–1897 (London: Bernard Quaritch, 1897), 51; Peter Lam, “Chinese making China: Technical Illustrations in the Jingdezhen taolu, 1815,” in Ming Wilson and Stacey Pierson, eds., The Art of the Book in China (Colloquies on Art and Archaeology in Asia, No. 23, London: University of London, 2006), 117–38; Ellen 77

Huang, “From the Imperial Court to the International Art Market: Jingdezhen Porcelain Production as Global Visual Culture,” Journal of World History, 23, no. 1 (March 2012), 115–45.

54. Michel Beurdeley and Guy Raindre, Qing Porcelain (London: Thames and Hudson, 1986), 185; Ronald Longsdorf, “The Tongzhi Imperial Wedding Porcelain,” Orientations 27, no. 9 (October 1996), 69–78.

55. Good Manners (New York: Butterick Publishing, 1888), 121, quoted in Charles Venable et al., China and Glass in America, 1880–1980 (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 2000), 30; Susan Detweiler, American Presidential China (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008), 60; Haviland & Co., The White House porcelain service. Designs by an American artist, illustrating exclusively American fauna and flora (New York, Haviland & Co., 1879), 2, 8, 87; Margaret Brown

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Klapthor, with additions and revisions by Betty C. Monkman, White House China (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1999), 118.

56. “Newcomb Pottery: Gratifying Prosperity of the School of Art,” Times-Democrat, March 11, 1901, in David Conradsen et al., The Arts and Crafts of Newcomb Pottery (New York: Skira Rizzoli Publications, Inc., 2013), 181, 298; Mary Sheerer, “Newcomb Pottery,” Keramic Studio, I (1899), 151; advertisement, The Newcomb Arcade, November 1915, in Jessie Poesch, Newcomb Pottery (Atglen, Pennsylvania: Schiffer Publishing, Ltd., 1984), 65.

57. Ellen Archie, Ronald W. Fuchs II, Jennifer Mass, Erich Uffelman, “ ‘The most dangerous imitations’: A Group of Spurious Chinese Export Porcelain Decorated with Fame and the American Eagle,” in Robert Hunter, ed., Ceramics in America

2016 (Milwaukee: Chipstone Foundation, 2016), 105-117; Homer Eaton Keyes, “Imitations of Chinese Lowestoft,” The Magazine Antiques XXIV, no. 4 (October 1933), 143.

Keyes used the term “Chinese Lowestoft” to refer to what is now known as Chinese export porcelain. The term arose in the 19th century, when early ceramics scholars mistakenly thought that Chinese porcelain was actually English porcelain made in the city of Lowestoft. Though the error was soon recognized, the terms “Oriental Lowestoft” and “Chinese Lowestoft” remained in use into the 1950s.

58. Bernard Leach, Hamada Potter (London: Thames and Hudson, 1976), 104.

59. Michelle Erickson and Robert Hunter, “Making a Bonnin and Morris Pickle Stand,” in Robert Hunter, ed., Ceramics in America (Milwaukee: Chipstone Foundation, 2007), 141–164.

Acknowledgements

I

am grateful for the advice, guidance, and assistance of my colleagues, without whom this book could not have happened. At Washington and Lee, thanks go to Dennis Cross, vice president for University Advancement; Lucy Wilkins and Kyra Swanson

in University Collections; Beth Bowman, Billy Chase, Cindy Moore, Lindsey Nair, Kevin Remington, and especially Julie Campbell (editor), and Mary Woodson (designer) in Communications and Public Affairs; Tom Camden and Lisa McCown in Special Collections & Archives; Elizabeth Teaff in Leyburn Library; Erich Uffelman in the Department of Chemistry; and former students Ellen Archie ’14 and Arianna India

Dial ’17.

Outside of Washington and Lee, Angela Howard, Rob Hunter, Christiaan Jörg, Errol Manners, and Julia Weber provided invaluable assistance.

And as always, special thanks to my parents, Ron and Sherry Fuchs, and my husband, Mike Wedlock, for their support and encouragement.

Funding for this publication comes from the W. Groke Mickey Endowment.

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Published by Washington and Lee University Lexington, Virginia Š Washington and Lee University Published: 2017 ISBN number: 978-0-692-92794-6 80