Some highly-finished dinner and tea services made there, like the Nanking blue, are excellent, and are much valued. Vases and other pieces painted in colors, with birds and other highly-colored designs, were also produced in the same styles as those made on the Continent. Figures, also, then much in fashion, were modeled here, like those made at Chelsea and elsewhere.
Cookworthy spent much money, and made none, and he came to his end. At last, in 1774, he sold his interests and patents to Champion, of Bristol, and the work ceased.
The mark used was the sign of the planet Jupiter--very nearly the figure _4_. It was somewhat varied.
[Illustration: Marks used on Plymouth porcelain]
BRISTOL--HARD PASTE.--The production at Bristol grew out of that at Plymouth, of which we have given a brief account. Richard Champion, merchant, of Bristol, was a man of much activity and ability. He took up the making of porcelain with eagerness, and is said to have produced both soft and hard china at his factory. The hard paste was used after his purchase of the patents, etc., of the Plymouth factory in 1774. Besides some very indifferent porcelain, some very beautiful work was made at Bristol; and for two or three years there was much activity there. But Champion, having no technical knowledge or skill, and but insufficient capital, soon failed, and the work ceased in 1777. He emigrated to South Carolina, where he died in 1791.
So little of this Bristol hard porcelain was made that it now brings great prices.
Blue and white tea and dessert services, in the style of the Chinese, were made there, as were many articles decorated with flowers. Walpole mentions, in his list of prices, "a cup and saucer, white, with green festoons of flowers, of Bristol porcelain."
Marryat refers to a fine tea and coffee service made for Edmund Burke in 1774, who presented it to a Mrs. Smith, who had entertained him during his election. He says: "The china is rich in gilding, the design elegant, and the execution good."
Mrs. James, of Cambridge, has one or two cups and saucers of blue hard paste marked with the + in gold--not in blue, which was the usual mark of Bristol; but there is little doubt that these are true Bristol.