Connecticut Ceramics Circle
‘Ceramics in the English Country Houses of the National Trust: Part I: Asian Stories; Part II: European Stories’ Monday 10 February

By: Patricia Ferguson,
Former Curator, British Museum and Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Honorary Advisor on Ceramics to the National Trust

Monday, 10 February
Lecture I at 1pm (EST), 6pm (GMT)
Lecure II at 2:30pm (EST), 7:30pm (GMT)
(via Zoom)

Lecture I Sponsored by Marcia Feinstein and Jeffrey Munger

Lecture II Sponsored by Michele Beiny Harkins

Registration and payment at
https://www.cceramicsc.org/patricia-ferguson-seminar

You are invited to join the Connecticut Ceramics Circle on Monday, February 10 at 1:00 p.m. and 2:30 p.m., when in Part I, Asian Stories, Patricia Ferguson will introduce the imported Asian ceramics typically found in British country houses during the period 1600 to 1950. Beginning with the Elizabethan and Jacobean passion for Chinese porcelain, kraak-style wares considered the first global ware, made in Jingdezhen and decorated in underglaze blue, were used as luxury table wares and often adapted with precious metal mounts for new purposes. The arrival in the 1630s of magnificent jars and vases painted with political subjects for display but also vases for flowers, lead to the fashion for massed display and assembled garnitures, which resulted in imports of matching vase sets in the 1690s. During the cessation in trade during the transitional period between the Ming and the Qing dynasties (1620-1683), Europeans turned to kilns in Arita, Japan, to supply their tables and decorate their wall brackets. In the eighteenth century, tea and tablewares in unlimited shapes, painted in polychrome enamels—famille verte and famille rose—often with painted armorials, as well as novelty birds and animals, filled the interiors and marked the taste of the evolving generations of owners. In the early twentieth century, the discovery of ancient wares from the Tang (618-907) and Song (960-1279) dynasties while building rail networks in China, introduced a whole new category of collecting. Each remarkable object has a story to tell of exploration and international commerce, technical innovation and high fashion, extravagant collectors and family pride. With over 250 houses and more than 80,000 ceramics the choice of stories available through the National Trust is limitless.

European Stories (Part II)

The second lecture will focus on non-Asian ceramics found in British country houses managed or owned by the National Trust, presented in the order in which they were in fashion and either acquired new or collected second-hand. Beginning in the seventeenth century with Italian maiolica and Dutch Delftware, followed in the eighteenth century by Meissen porcelain, French porcelain and faience, Chelsea, Worcester and Derby porcelain. The discovery of the ceramics at Pompeii and Herculaneum in the mid-eighteenth century, acquired as souvenirs, inspired the potter Josiah Wedgwood and his partner Thomas Bentley to produce copies to furnish libraries and chimneypieces for armchair travelers, which resulted in the mania for vases of all kinds. Then with the dispersal of the French royal collection during the Revolution in 1789, English aristocrats acquired Vincennes and Sèvres porcelain, and on their return to Paris after the Treaty of Amiens in 1802-3, Paris porcelain. The rise of ceramics collecting in the nineteenth century and the many related publications led to acquisitions by recognition of maker’s marks, and an interest in historic ceramics in the Victorian age, ably catered to by the illustrious wares of the Minton manufactory of Stoke-on-Trent. The speaker will draw on a wealth of documentary evidence – letters, inventories, watercolors, paintings and historic photographs – to explain how these ceramics touched almost every aspect of family and social life in Britain over 400 years.

Patricia F. Ferguson is an independent scholar based in London, England, and has worked as a curator at the British Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. For the past two decades, she has served as Honorary Adviser on Ceramics to The National Trust in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and recently completed a survey of Asian ceramics in the National Trust for Scotland. She studied Chinese ceramics at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), where she earned a post-graduate degree, following her undergraduate degree at the University of Toronto. Her recent publications include, as editor, Pots, Prints and Politics: Ceramics with an Agenda, from the 14th to the 20th Century (British Museum Research Publication, 2021); and as author, Ceramics: 400 years of British Collecting in 100 Masterpieces (PWP, 2016), for which she won the 2017 American Ceramic Circle Book Award, as well as numerous other publications.

Please note that only members who have registered and paid will receive the subsequent lecture recordings. Seminar fees are as follows: $35 for members; $45 for nonmembers; $40 for those under 40; and $75 for a 1/2 year membership and the Seminar. Please register and pay via your Seminar invitation or at https://www.cceramicsc.org/patricia-ferguson-seminar.

Also note that Zoom has instituted updates, so make sure you’ve updated your Zoom account before clicking on the link sent to you by Zoom for this lecture!