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as their wonderfully elaborate and delicate ornamentation is helpful to the student of the contemporary art of Wales, as seen on her ancient crosses and other carved stones. With them is placed the Llangwnad! bell of cast bronze, the property of the National Museum; and in a neighbouring case will be noticed another bell of the ancient Welsh Church, similar in shape, but made of sheet iron coated with bronze. This bell is lent by the University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire, and its source is unknown, but there is reason to think that it is identical with one described by Theophilus Jones in his History of the County of Brecknock, as found on the site of the Chapel of St. Cenau, daughter of Brychan, about 1800 (vol. ii, p. 467). On the upper portions of the walls of this room are two Roman mosaic pavements from Caerwent, several large portraits in oils of Welsh interest, and a series of old views of Cardiff and Llandaff. The portraits are of General Picton; David Williams, D.D., founder of the Royal Literary Fund; Dr. Emlyn Jones, author of Bedd y Dyn Tylawd; General Nott; and D. W. Jones, F.G.S. (Dafydd Morganwg).

The chief features of the Second Antiquities Room are ceramics and casts of decorated Welsh pre-Norman monuments. The visitor, upon entering, has on his right five cases of Swansea and Nantgarw porcelain, and the series is continued on the left at the end of the room by a case of Swansea earthenware, and another of miscellaneous pieces which, in various ways, illustrates Welsh ceramics, and includes 'faked' and forged examples. The cases near at hand on this side. contain a collection of pottery to illustrate the art of the English potter from medieval days to the early decades of the last century.

The collection of Welsh porcelain is certainly the largest and best of its kind, and not often a month elapses without some connoisseur making a considerable journey to consult it. This porcelain is scarce,

especially that of Nantgarw, for its manufacture was of short duration. It began at Nantgarw in 1811, but it is probable that very little of its product found its way into the market for some years. From the start the proprietors were handicapped for want of capital, and this led to the closing of the factory in 1814, when they removed to the Cambrian Pottery at Swansea, where, under Mr. Lewis Weston Dillwyn, they introduced the manufacture on a larger scale, and under better conditions. The Nantgarw factory was resuscitated in 1817 by the help of generous local patrons; but at both the manufacture soon ceased-at Nantgarw about 1821, and at Swansea a year or two later. Thus the period of Welsh porcelain was but ten years, and only during the last six was the output of commercial importance.

It was a period of art decadence, and the decoration followed the fashion of the time. Flowers, garden and wild-a large central group, a group with detached flowers, symmetrically or irregularly arranged, or small dispersed bouquets, and all close copies of nature-are especially characteristic, and are rarely subordinated to a decorative scheme. The typical Nantgarw or Swansea plate presents a picture of flowers, often exquisitely painted, framed with a simple or enriched gilt border. Instead of flowers there may be a landscape or a group of figures; but decoration in the strict sense of the term is not often essayed, and although the designs are sometimes graceful and satisfying, they cannot be said to quite attain the tasteful appropriateness of those of the older porcelains, as those of Worcester, Derby and Chelsea, in their best days.

Yet Welsh porcelain, especially that of Nantgarw, played an important part in the history of British ceramics. The Nantgarw body is singularly translucent, and its whiteness is mellowed by a faint warm tinge. It is so soft and glassy that few pieces have passed through the ordeal of firing without distortion and other blemishes; but at its best it is unrivalled.

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