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拍品專文
This service comes with a remarkable provenance. Since it was first ordered around two hundred years ago, it appears to have been owned by only two families and, unusually for a service, to have remained in virtually original condition and close to complete. It was first acquired by the Nugents of Killester in Co. Dublin, who passed the service down from one generation of the family to the next until about 1940 when, still within the family, the service was brought over from Ireland to Yorkshire. In 1981, following the death of his aunt, Henry Maitland Clark, former Ulster Unionist MP for North Antrim, inherited the service. Ten years later, it was acquired from Henry Clark by the present owner, a private collector of English ironstone. In a letter following the purchase (the original of which is available to the buyer of this lot), Henry Clark recalled that there was a saying in his family that 'you could serve ten courses to twenty people without ever washing a plate', and indeed this service must be among the largest of its type remaining in private hands, or to come to auction in recent years.
The Hicks & Meigh pottery works was established in the very early years of the 19th century when a partnership was formed between Richard Hicks and Job Meigh. Based in Shelton (Hanley) from about 1803 until 1822 (when Johnson joined the partnership), it produced a wide range of high quality earthenwares and richly decorated porcelains. Hicks & Meigh was one of the first and amongst the leading manufacturers of stone china, together with Masons, Spode and Davenport. This service is an extremely fine example of the richly decorated 'Japan' pattern stone china dinner and dessert services that were made from about 1813. For further discussion of the factory see Geoffrey A. Godden, Godden's Guide to Ironstone, Woodbridge, 1999, pp. 252-264, and p. 258, pl. 198 for an illustration of a plate decorated with pattern no. 13, described by the author as largely hand-painted.
The Hicks & Meigh pottery works was established in the very early years of the 19th century when a partnership was formed between Richard Hicks and Job Meigh. Based in Shelton (Hanley) from about 1803 until 1822 (when Johnson joined the partnership), it produced a wide range of high quality earthenwares and richly decorated porcelains. Hicks & Meigh was one of the first and amongst the leading manufacturers of stone china, together with Masons, Spode and Davenport. This service is an extremely fine example of the richly decorated 'Japan' pattern stone china dinner and dessert services that were made from about 1813. For further discussion of the factory see Geoffrey A. Godden, Godden's Guide to Ironstone, Woodbridge, 1999, pp. 252-264, and p. 258, pl. 198 for an illustration of a plate decorated with pattern no. 13, described by the author as largely hand-painted.