This attractive supper service is an extremely rare example of early-19th-century ceramics finished with zoological decoration.
The quality of the work is of the highest standard and it is the only known set of its kind to survive complete with its original mahogany tray.
The service was made at the Cambrian Pottery in Swansea and decorated by Thomas Pardoe and William Weston Young, both outstanding talents of their day. Each of the covers and interiors of the dishes and each of the eight plates is painted with a different animal. Featured animals include a tiger, a zebra, a lion, a kangaroo and a fox.
Young painted the animals while Pardoe was responsible for the landscape backgrounds and gilding.
More information
Title of artwork, date
Swansea Supper Service, c1806
Date supported
2015
Medium and material
Pearlware, mahogany and brass
Dimensions
54cm (tray); 26 x 12.5cm (tureen); 19 x 12cm (quadrant dishes and covers); 20.5cm (plates)
Grant
22,500
Total cost
41,250
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