Part 25 (2/2)

Presumably the ”6 tea cups & Sawcers,” ”2 chocolate cups,” and ”2 custard cups” obtained by him the same year were also porcelain. Even before 1740, porcelain was occurring with increasing frequency in America. We are told that in 1734, for example, it can be calculated that about one million pieces of it left Canton for Europe.[202]

Doubtless a large proportion was reexported to the colonists. William Walker, Mercer's undertaker for the mansion, left at his death in 1750: ”1 Crack'd China bowl,” ”1 Quart Bowl 6/, 1 large D^o 12.6,” ”6 China cups & Sawcers 5/,” and ”12 China plates 15/.”

It is not surprising, therefore, that 18th-century China-trade porcelain sherds occurred with high incidence at Marlborough. Mercer's accounts show that he acquired from Charles d.i.c.k in 1745 ”1 Sett finest China”

and ”2 punch bowls.” From the archeological evidence it would appear that he had supplemented this several times over, perhaps after 1750 in the period for which we have no ledgers.

Most of the porcelain is blue and white. One group has cloudy, blurred houses and trees, impressionistic landscapes, and flying birds. This pattern occurs in fragments of teacups, small bowls, and a coffee cup.

Another type has a border of diamonds within diamonds, elaborate floral designs delicately drawn, and a fine thin body. Similar sherds were found at Rosewell. At Marlborough the design survived in teacups, coffee cups, and saucers. There are several additional border designs, some a.s.sociated with Chinese landscape subjects or human figures (figs. 76, ill. 24, and fig. 77, ill. 25). A coa.r.s.e type with a crudely designed border hastily filled in with solid blue is represented in a partly reconstructed plate (USNM 60.122, fig. 77).

Polychrome porcelain is found in lesser amounts, although in almost as much variety. Three sherds of a very large punchbowl are decorated in red and blue. Fragments of a small bowl have delicate red medallions with small red and black human figures in their centers. Fine borders occur in red and black. Gold, yellow, and green floral patterns const.i.tute another cla.s.s (fig. 75).

Almost all the porcelain is of high quality, probably reaching a peak during Mercer's middle and prosperous years between 1740 and 1760. We cannot expect to find any porcelain purchased after his death in 1768, and certainly none appears to be connected with the Federal period or with the so-called ”Lowestoft” imported in the American China trade after the Revolution.

FOOTNOTES:

[180] See BERNARD RACKHAM, _Catalogue of the Glaisher Collection of Pottery & Porcelain in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge_ [England] Cambridge, England: (Cambridge University Press, 1935), vol. 2, pl. 150 B no. 2053; and vol.

1, p. 264.

[181] I. NOeL HUME, ”Excavations at Rosewell, Gloucester County, Virginia, 1957-1959,” (paper 18 in _Contributions from the Museum of History and Technology: Papers 12-18_, U.S. National Museum Bulletin 225, by various authors; Was.h.i.+ngton: Smithsonian Inst.i.tution, 1963), 1962. J. PAUL HUDSON, ”Earliest Yorktown Pottery,” _Antiques_ (New York, May 1958), vol. 73, no. 5, pp. 472-473; WATKINS and NOeL HUME, loc. cit. (footnote 173).

[182] RACKHAM, op. cit. (footnote 180), vol. 1, p. 158.

[183] W. B. HONEY, ”English Salt Glazed Stoneware,”

[abstract] _English Ceramic Circle Transactions_ (London, 1933), no. 1, p. 14.

[184] Ibid.

[185] Ibid.; BERNARD RACKHAM, _Early Staffords.h.i.+re Pottery_ (London, n.d.), p. 20.

[186] BERNARD RACKHAM and HERBERT READ, _English Pottery_ (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1924), p. 88.

[187] DOW, op. cit. (footnote 178), pp. 86-87.

[188] RACKHAM, op. cit. (footnote 185), p. 92.

[189] DOW, op. cit. (footnote 178), p. 92.

[190] A. M. GARNER, _English Delftware_ (New York: D. Van Nostrand and Co., Inc., 1948), fig. 23B.

[191] Ibid., fig. 37.

[192] RACKHAM, op. cit. (footnote 185), p. 28.

[193] Ibid., pl. 57.

[194] RACKHAM and READ, op. cit. (footnote 186), p. 96.

[195] Ibid., p. 97.

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