The Gardens Trust’s second series exploring how gardens and flowers have influenced and inspired other arts and crafts turns to ceramics. This lustrous material was invented centuries ago in China and has long been regarded as rare, beautiful and highly sought after, and by the 18th Century the secret of making and firing this material had been discovered in Europe. Porcelain provided an ideal background for painted decoration, and botanical designs and landscapes provided a rich source of inspiration. Three of our talks provide a brief chronology of floral images and themes on porcelain from the symbolism of Chinese peonies to the botanical depictions of ‘Sir Hans Sloane’s plants’. We also look at the eighteenth century fashion for illustrating topographical views on ceramics, including the iconic Green Frog Service and the depiction of the circuit created at Hafod, as well as other picturesque views, all of which have provided objects of great beauty, usefulness and prestige, as well as being an invaluable tool for the modern researcher.

This ticket is for the entire course of 6 sessions. or you may purchase a ticket for individual session, costing £5 via the link HERE. Attendees will be sent a Zoom link 2 days (and again a few hours) prior to the start of the first talk (If you do not receive this link please contact us), and a link to the recorded session will be sent shortly after each session and will be available for 1 week.

The first English porcelain workshops were founded by entrepreneurs and artisans, some with Huguenot connections, in mid-18th Century London. They included Bow, established near to the East India Company docks and Chelsea, close to the old botanical Physic Garden. Charles Gouyn’s factory, formerly known as the ‘Girl in a Swing’ factory, specialised in small scent bottles modeled as fruit or bouquets of flowers. The Rococo style, characterized by scrolls, shells and flowers, dominated the decorative arts of the period and porcelain was a perfect and fashionable vehicle to interpret the style. Early English flower-painted porcelain wares have a warmth and charm derived from the varying soft-paste porcelain materials. They range from the ‘Hans Sloane’ botanical plates made at Chelsea to Bow figures of shepherdesses with garlands of flowers and the famous ‘Blind Earl’ pattern plates from Worcester. The lecture includes porcelain painted by renowned flower artists such as William Billingsley and William ‘Quaker’ Pegg, through the Regency period and on to the Victorian revival of the rococo style.

Anne Haworth is an independent scholar and historian and an Accredited Lecturer of The Arts Society. She was formerly senior ceramics specialist at the head office of Christie’s Fine Art Auctioneers in London and is a lecturer and guide for major London museums and art galleries and was a lecturer for the Royal Collections Trust for 10 years. Anne also lived in China for seven years and studied and lectured on the history of Chinese porcelain.