This is a pair of spectacular ice pails made by the Derby Porcelain Company in about 1790 and decorated with pattern 80, which consists of very fine flowers by the famous painter William Billingsley. Each ice pail consists of the outer pot, a liner, and a cover.
We also have a part dessert service available made by Barr, Flight & Barr, painted with flowers by William Billingsley. This service makes a great match, see second image. You can find it in a separate listing in this shop.
Ice pails were popular in the Georgian and Regency era to serve ice cream for dessert. Each ice pail would have an internal liner that would hold the ice cream, with ice cubes below and above in the top compartment. The ice cubes would be frozen from slightly salted water in order to keep them frozen for longer. This construction could keep ice cream frozen for about four hours; in an era without fridges this was of course essential if you wanted impress your guests with ice cream for dessert.
The Derby Porcelain factory has its roots in the late 1740s, when Andrew Planché, a Walloon Huguenot refugee, started making simple porcelain toys shaped like animals in his back yard. In 1756 Staffordshire enameller William Duysbury and banker John Heath started a new porcelain factory with Planché and this was to grow out to the largest factory of its time, buying up the bankrupted Chelsea and Bow factories, as well as the stock of several other workshops including that of James Giles. The combination of various traditions, porcelain making skills and sophisticated clients enabled Duesbury to create one of the best porcelain factories of the 18th and 19th Centuries, which after many ups and downs is still operative today.
These ice pails were part of a large dessert service in the famous patter 80, which was painted by William Billingsley. They are in a simple white ground with modest gilt rims, and beautiful naturalistically painted flower compositions throughout. The side handles of each ice pail are beautifully shaped like shells and have elegant gilding; the finial of the cover is in the shape of a loop.
William Billingsley was a brilliant but notoriously difficult man who left behind a trail of debts, broken hearts and mystery - but he was also one of the most important people in the history British porcelain. Billingsley revolutionised the way British decorators painted flowers; he added a freedom and artistry that now singles out British flower painting, and he created a new technique for painting roses, which you can see in this design. Billingsley worked at Derby, Worcester and Mansfield. He also set up his own potteries in Pinxton and Nantgarw and created some of the best porcelain ever made, but racking up great debts, before running off in the dead of night and ending his days at Coalport painting flowers.
Items painted by William Billingsley are rare and very much in demand - together with Thomas Baxter's work they are probably among the most desired pieces of British porcelain.
The ice pails are marked with the puce crowned double baton Derby mark, and the pattern number 80. An image of very similar ice pails in the same pattern, also painted by Billingsley, can be found in plate 203 on page 172 of John Twitchett's "Derby Porcelain; another pair can be found on the website of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
CONDITION REPORT The ice pails, liners and covers are in perfect antique condition without any damage, crazing, repairs, or significant wear.
Antique British porcelain is never perfect. Kilns were fired on coal in the 1700s, and this meant that china from that period can have some firing specks from flying particles. British makers were also known for their experimentation, and sometimes this resulted in technically imperfect results. Due to the shrinkage in the kiln, items can have small firing lines or develop crazing over time, which should not be seen as damage but as an imperfection of the maker's recipes, probably unknown at the time of making. Items have often been used for many years and can have normal signs of wear, and gilt can have signs of slight disintegration even if never handled. I will reflect any damage, repairs, obvious stress marks, crazing or heavy wear in the item description but some minor scratches, nicks, stains and gilt disintegration can be normal for vintage items and need to be taken into account.
There is widespread confusion on the internet about the difference between chips and nicks, or hairlines and cracks. I will reflect any damage as truthfully as I can, i.e. a nick is a tiny bit of damage smaller than 1mm and a chip is something you can easily see with the eye; a glazing line is a break in the glazing only; hairline is extremely tight and/or superficial and not picked up by the finger; and a crack is obvious both to the eye and the finger. Etcetera - I try to be as accurate as I can and please feel free to ask questions or request more detailed pictures!
DIMENSIONS each ice pail is 23cm X 23cm (9" X 9") incl. the finial.
