From the June 2025 issue of Apollo. Preview and subscribe here.
In December 2008 a tin-glazed earthenware armorial dish, elaborately moulded and painted in blue, orange, yellow and manganese, came up for sale at Bonhams London. Made in c. 1649–51 and signed with the initials REN, the dish came from the Pickle-herring Quay pottery, pioneers in English delftware, established in Southwark by Christian Wilhelm in around 1618. The dish commemorates the union of the Markham and Faringe families. Bought by the Milwaukee Art Museum for £54,000, it is one of very few surviving early commemorative wares, dating to the fraught political moment after the execution of Charles I, when the Puritans were stamping out such ostentation. Related commemorative delftware includes a Pickleherring dish in the V&A depicting Charles I, dated 1653, four years after his death. It seems people were prepared to celebrate their good fortune – and expose their Royalist sympathies – through their choice of ceramics, even at this critical time.
Armorial delftware moulded dish (c. 1649–51), made of tin-glazed porcelain. Courtesy Bonhams
It was not until the restoration of Charles II in 1660, however, that the commemorative ceramics business really got going in England. At first, delftware continued to be an important medium and royalty a primary subject. Today these pieces are highly sought after, especially in the United States – many 17th-century British settlers brought English delftware with them to the New World. In 2021 at Christie’s New York a ‘blue dash’ dish from the Longridge Collection of Syd Levethan, featuring a portrait of the king in his robes of office and dated 1672, the year of Charles II’s Declaration of Indulgence, achieved $62,500. A similar dish dated 1662 – possibly commemorating Charles’s wedding to Catherine of Braganza – from the collection of Benjamin F. Edwards III had sold in 2010 at Christie’s New York for $170,500. Last November, a large delftware tankard from a Bristol pottery with a rare portrait of Queen Anne, dated 1702–14, achieved £14,080 at Bonhams London. At the same house this April, a delftware charger from the late 17th century with blue-dash border, possibly featuring a bold General Sir Thomas Fairfax on a horse, was chased to £9,600 against a £6,000–£8,000 estimate.
Alongside delftware, Thomas Toft from Burslem in Stoke-on-Trent began to make commemorative chargers in the local Staffordshire slipware, trailing lively portraits of Charles II and his queen in light- and dark-brown slip over a cream-coloured ground. His work is highly prized today: at Christie’s London in 2016 a particularly fine Royal Arms charger (c. 1660–75) signed by Toft, one of only seven recorded, fetched £122,500 – more than £20,000 over estimate.
A Staffordshire slipware ‘Royal Arms’ charger (c. 1660–75), made and signed by Thomas Toft. Courtesy Christie’s Images Ltd 2016
From 1750, the invention of transfer printing brought down the costs of commemorative wares dramatically, and turbulent politics and a succession of wars stimulated an explosion of production. John Cockburn of Pickleherring Antique Pottery has available a rare mug featuring a portrait of George III and signed ‘I. Sadler Liverpool’, which may have been produced in 1763 to celebrate victory in the Seven Years’ War. John Sadler and his partner Guy Green were pioneers of transfer printing, serving the Staffordshire potteries. Transfer printing allowed the same images – a portrait and a ship, perhaps – to be used repeatedly, with a different battle and different date added. Recurring heroic figures include the dashing admirals Lords Nelson and Rodney. There is a brisk market for such pieces. Burnside notes that ‘Some events will have a niche but very commercial appeal. For many of the pieces, if they did not have a Rodney or Nelson on them, they would fetch very little.’ Errol Manners of London dealership E&H Manners has just sold a small five-part tea service for a low six-figure sum. It was made in the Real Fabbrica Ferdinandea (or Royal Porcelain Factory) in Naples, as a gift from the Queen of Naples to then Rear Admiral Sir Horatio Nelson in 1798, and features a portrait of ‘our brave deliverer’ after he disembarked in Italy fresh from winning the Battle of the Nile.‘The market was strong 15 to 20 years ago,’ Manners says,‘but there is still depth of interest today for rare pieces.’
Nic Saintey, ceramics specialist at auctioneers Bearnes, Hampton & Littlewood, agrees that ‘Commemorative ceramics are not as popular as they once were – especially the royal ones.’ But he notes continuing interest in anti-Napoleonic, anti-French ceramics – a strong feature of the British Museum’s 2018 show ‘Pots with Attitude: British Satire on Ceramics, 1760–1830’ – and commemoratives relating to campaigns against slavery or for the poor. There is also ‘a strong following’ for Jacobite punchbowls, when they appear: ‘You would have paid with your life to own one of those.’ In the May 2021 sale of Property of the Earls of Breadalbane and Holland, Lyon & Turnbull sold a ‘Jacobite Punch-Bowl (Qianlong period)’, part of a small group of Jacobite Chinese export porcelain wares, decorated with a copy of one of the most prolifically produced and recognisable engravings of Prince Charles, the Young Pretender, by Sir Robert Strange, an engraver from Edinburgh and member of the prince’s Lifeguards regiment during the ’45. Although chipped, it fetched £14,375. Katherine Wright, a senior specialist in European decorative arts at Lyon & Turnbull, comments: ‘Good provenance will always add interest and value. Condition is also important, as the market is in this area is generally selective. However, for a very rare piece people will overlook damage or restoration.’ She notes that commemorative wares attract an overlapping clientele of those interested in the specific historical figures, events or subject matter and those interested in the style or manufacturer – Delftware, Spode, Royal Doulton, Wemyss Ware or Prattware.
Chinese export porcelain Jacobite punch bowl, Qianlong period (1736–95). Courtesy Lyon & Turnbull
Independent dealer John Howard notes that interest in social history has dropped generally, but ‘Those who are still keen are very keen.’ Established in 1976, he has just experienced his most financially successful year. He notes that while collectors used to focus on commemoratives as a group, now they have niche specialisms: ‘Naval, military, boxing, theatrical, murders, crimes, Acts of Parliament, railways, coal mining.’ Seventy-five per cent of his clients are American, meaning that anything with an American connection, however tenuous, is sought after. This is a mature market: ‘People are very specific about what they are looking for, and very particular about condition,’ he says. Nevertheless, ‘If I can find the right, rare thing, it is easy to sell.’ He finds especially touching ceramics celebrating particular marriages – and the ceramic figures produced to commemorate the 1823 Marriage Act. Industrialisation brought costs right down, though design often suffered. There is little market for pieces later than 1851, although Howard observes some market for Eric Ravilious’s collaborations with Wedgwood (Two coronation mugs, 1937 and 1953, sold at Bonhams London in April for £704).
Andrew Hilton, owner of specialist auction house Historical & Collectable, has been part of the market in commemoratives for more than 45 years. He thinks the market has declined from a peak around 1995 to 2005, though the American market is still strong. He confirms the strength of special interests – ‘Railway pieces from the 1830s, pieces commemorating the Great Reform Act or the Peterloo Massacre, rare pieces such as those commemorating the 1803 Great Invasion Scare’ – but ‘Prices are not what they were.’ He quotes John May, an early specialist in the field: ‘Commemoratives are the fascinating small change of our national heritage.’
Five-part porcelain tea service (1798), Real Fabbrica Ferdinandea, Naples. Courtesy E&H Manners Ltd
From the June 2025 issue of Apollo. Preview and subscribe here.