The Antiquary.

JULY, 1881.

Armorial China.

By GEORGE W. MARSHALL, LL.D. AM not æsthetic enough to pose in an attitude of admiration in front of a plate or pot of the most precious old blue; the finest group of Chelsea figures has no charm for me, and I can see no more beauty in Wedgwood, Spode, Worcester, and Japanese, than in the common crockery which adorns my kitchen dresser. I have no pretence to be sufficiently learned to point out from the paste or painting the factory from which a teapot emanated, or even to guess the date of a saucer out of which Dr. Johnson might have imbibed his tea. I neither know nor care about old crockery, except in so far as the few specimens of it to be obtained serve to illustrate heraldry and genealogy, of which so-called "gentle sciences" I have some knowledge. Like most persons afflicted with a hobby, I have a taste for collecting such things as bear upon it, and hence I have formed a rather extensive collection of old bowls, cups, plates, mugs, and teapots, adorned with the arms of their former possessors.

Having thus confessed my ignorance of the history of pottery and porcelain, by way of introducing myself to my readers, I proceed to point out my reason for thinking that a careful study of the armorial bearings found on old china would not be an altogether uninstructive pursuit to those who are interested in ceramic art.

The custom of painting arms on china probably arose about 1700, or a little later. I am not acquainted with any specimens to which an earlier date than 1720 can be safely assigned. At this time the fashion had, however, become popular among the wealthy London citizens who traded with

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the East Indies, and hence, no doubt, we find that all the earliest specimens are of oriental porcelain. The manufacture of armorial china in this country .does not appear to have begun earlier than 1750. From 1760 to 1800, there seems to have been a rage for this method of marking the ownership of all kinds of china in domestic use. I have numerous articles, from a tea cup to a punch bowl, emblazoned with arms. After 1800 the drawing of the arms, from a herald's point of view, became execrably bad, and by 1820 the rage had died

away.

The chief use of a collection of armorial china is, that it enables us to fix approximately, and sometimes very nearly, the date at which a particular piece of ware was manufactured. This knowledge attained, I imagine that those well acquainted with the peculiarities of the paste, glaze, and painting, of different china-works, would be able to tell, with much greater certainty, the particular factory at which the ware was made, than they could without such an important clue.

For example, it is a common notion that a great proportion of china painted with arms was made at Lowestoft, where a china factory was established in 1756, and much apparently oriental ware has the credit of having been made there; now, if from the heraldic bearings upon a particular piece it can be shown that it must have been made previous to the year 1756, however like the paste, glaze, or decoration, might be to Lowestoft china, the arms would be conclusive evidence that the china on which they were painted was not made there. We learn the date at which arms were painted in several ways. If the arms of the owner are impaled with those of his wife, or her arms are placed on a shield of pretence, the ware must have been made after the date at which the marriage took place, and before that at which either of the parties died. If the coat be a quartered coat, the china must have been made after the right of the bearer to the quartering accrued; if it bears the badge of a baronet, or the coronet and supporters of a peer, after the title was conferred; or it may be that some difference, such as a knight's helmet, an order, a mark of cadency,

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