A Worcester dessert service by Chamberlain - history of service donated to Baltimore Museum of Art

Magazine Antiques, Sept, 2000 by Mavis A. Cleggett

The design of this service is almost identical to the one Chamberlain had supplied to Edwin Stacey of Maidstone, Kent, a year earlier. [6] The difference is that the Stacey service has a net background rather than the seaweed, or vermicelli, background of the Brown service. Also, the centerpiece of the Brown service has a round base (see P1. III), and the Stacey centerpiece has a dolphin base (see Fig. 4). Both centerpieces are decorated with a view of the Chamberlain factory (Fig. 3), which is the only view the two services share.

On December 12, 1818, the firm of William and James Brown of Liverpool ordered the following from Chamberlain:

24 Plates 3 Fawn 403/Vandyke Gold border with paintings part as below/Windsor Castle from Slough/Blenheim from the Pillar [Pl. IX]/Warwick Castle from the Bridge/Tintern Abbey from opposite side Wye River/London from Greenwich/Oxford from London Road [Pl. VIII]/Charging an Ox Fence/Going in and out Clever/Facing a Brook/Topping Rails and Coming Well into the Next Field [Pl. IV]/Swishing at a Rasper/A Race/Liverpool/Liverpool Exchange/Hunting Scenes/R R for the rest Wanted in Liverpool by 10 Jany. [7]

Again, the last line suggests that Brown wanted to meet a sailing date and presumably shipped the plates to his family in Baltimore. Twelve of the twenty-four plates from the order survive in the Baltimore Museum. In addition to the two noted above, one shows the Blind Asylum in Liverpool. William Brown was a subscriber to that school from 1812 until 1863 and president between 1846 and 1863. He then left the school a legacy. [8] He was obviously proud enough of his association with the school to have it depicted on the service he sent to Baltimore. The fact that all the Brown brothers suffered from very poor eyesight [9] may account for William's interest in this school.

The three hunting scenes depicted on the surviving plates in Baltimore are based on Sir Robert Frankland-Russell's Indispensable Accomplishments of Fox Hunting from which a set of six aquatints was published in June 1811. These are Going in and out Clever, Swishing at a Rasper (see Pl. V), and Charging an Ox-Fence (see Pl. VI). It would be interesting to know which of Chamberlain's artists was responsible for painting these sporting subjects, which were nine guineas for six plates--half again as much as the other eighteen plates in the 1818 order.

The final description on the 1818 order, "R R for the Rest," was initially perplexing. It stands for Richard Reeve, the Englishman who engraved twelve views of Waterloo after drawings by Samuel Wharton, a land surveyor. One of these, The Observatory Used at the Battle (Fig. 6), appears on one of the Baltimore plates from the 1818 order (Pl. XI). There is a breakfast plate with the same view in the royal collection, one of eight surviving plates with views from the Reeve engravings of Waterloo. Those plates, of which there were originally twelve, are part of a large and well-known service supplied by Chamberlain to the Prince Regent (later George IV; r. 1820-1830) between 1811 and 1816. [10] The views of Waterloo on the plates in the royal collection are much larger than the ones on the plates in the Baltimore Museum and cost three and a half guineas each, compared to one guinea each for the Brown plates. Presumably only the best painters were employed in decorating the royal service.