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Grigsby, Leslie B. (Leslie Brown) / The Longridge collection of English slipware and delftware. Volume 2: delftware
(2000)
Dishes and plates: royal, martial, and other historical figures and events, pp. 38-89
Page 50
D17. DISH
London or perhaps Brislington or Bristol
c. 1680-1685
H.: 2 5/8" (6.7 cm);
Diam.: 131/4" (33.7 cm)
BODY CLAY: Pinkish buff with
inclusions.
TIN GLAZE: White. Overall on interior.
LEAD GLAZE: Streaky, over pale slip.
Overall on exterior.
SHAPE: Thrown over hump mold.
Shape B1/b with slightly convex center
to interior and pronounced turning
grooves on exterior.
DECORATION: Painted. Equestrian
figure, probably General George
Monck, first Duke of Albemarle. Border
composed of circle and dashes.
Published, Morley-Fletcher and Mcllroy,
Pictorial History, p. 242, no. 7; Horne,
Collection, pt. 8, no, 195.
DEL FTWARE [ Dining and Related Wares
DELFTWARE Dishes and Plates
Royal, Martial. and Other Historical Figures
and Events
he figure on the Longridge and related dishes is without identiftying initials,
but the same subject-also with the baton, indicative of high military rank-is
depicted on a 1680 dated dish initialed "G DM" and thought to represent
George
Monck (or Monk), first Duke of Albemarle (1608-1670; see Time Line, pp. 15-16).,
After his death, Monck's body lay in state at Somerset House before his funeral
was held with great ceremony at Westminster Abbey. An effigy (partially sur-
viving there) made at his death portrayed him "in Compleate Armour azured
with guilt [gilt] Nayles ... this Representation to hold [a] Guilt Baston
[baton] of
Copper in the Right hand." Although by this period armor rarely appeared
on
the battlefield, Monck and some other important military leaders still were
por-
trayed wearing it (see nos. D38, D39, D50). (Sashes were colored to indicate
which side the officer was on and often were large enough to use as a litter
to
carry him off the field if he was wounded in battle.)2 In 1680 public anxiety
about the succession to the throne led to renewed expressions of enthusiasm
for Monck's memory, and it would have been entirely appropriate for potters
to
have produced dishes with his portrait at that time. (For a diminutive horseman
with a baton and trailing sash on a 1680 dated plate, see no. D88.)
An engraving of Monck, probably after one for an earlier military hero
(see
no. D207), inspired the decoration on the dish shown here and at least six
other
examples so similar in coloring and style that they probably are by the
same
hand. Trees with scalelike foliage and "paths" in the foreground
occur on many
other late seventeenth-century dishes, but here and on another Longridge
equestrian dish (no. D12), they have tufts of strokes added to the trees.
This
unusual treatment also occurs on a 1685 dated double portrait dish inscribed
"MsH" and "MRH," providing an approximate date for the
Longridge dishes."
1. Archer, V&A, no. A.59, col. pl. 39; Archer,
Monck, fig. 1, p. 2.
2. Harvey and Mortimer, Efligies, pp. 72 78,
no, 7; Horne comments (September 1998).
3. For Monck engravings, see Archer, Monck,
p. 3, figs. 4-5; and for similar dishes, p. 6, fig. 9
(Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, collection,
noý 62.1212); Ray, Warren, no. 10; Bonham's
(Knightsbridge), October 23, 1996, lot 133.
4. Archer, Monck, p. 7, fig. 10; lipski and Archer,
Dated Delftware, no. 77. See Archer, V&A,
nos. A.6, A.15, for other subject dishes with
related decorative details.
SO The Longridge Collection
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II
Copyright Jonathan Horn Publications 2000.| For information on re-use see: http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/Copyright




