A small Richard Chaffers Mug or Coffee Can, circa 1758
This small mug or coffee can is painted in underglaze blue with a charming Chinese island riverscape. The handle is plain, and the flat base is partially glazed, with evidence of the three tiny kiln supports used in the firing.
The manufactory of Richard Chaffers produced some of the earliest porcelain in Liverpool, and his wares – often with a distinctive duck-egg blue glaze, as seen here – are particularly fine and collectable. On December 10th 1756, the following advertisement was placed in Williamson’s Liverpool Advertiser:
Chaffers and Co., China Manufactory. The porcelain or china ware made by Messrs. Richard Chaffers and Co., is sold nowhere in the town but at their manufactory on Shaw’s Brow; considerable abatement for exportation, and to all wholesale dealers.
Condition: Excellent – no chips, cracks or restoration. There are a couple of minute, glazed indentations which occurred during manufacture, and typical impurities in the paste associated with porcelain from this early period.
This mug would enhance any collection of early English blue and white porcelain.
Dimensions: Height 6 cm
Liverpool Porcelain 1756-1804, Maurice Hillis (2011).
Liverpool Porcelain of the Eighteenth Century, Bernard M. Watney (Richard Dennis, 1997).