Figure 1 Engraving of teapot, earthenware
with colored clay ornament; Messrs. Clay and Edge of Burslem, Staffordshire.
This drawing appeared in the Art Journal Illustrated Catalogue: The Industry
of All Nations, 1851, reprinted as Great Exhibition: London’s
Crystal Palace Exposition of 1851 (New York: Gramercy Books, 1995),
p. 41. The catalog entry for this teapot reads, “A patented branch
of their [Clay and Edge] business is devoted to the ornamentation of similar
articles by inlaying clays of various tints, thus producing an indestructible
colouring for the leaves and other ornaments.” At the end of Eliza
Cook’s tales, she gives a charge to ‘good Summerley and his disciples’
to ‘beautify what thou canst for the people’ and ‘give beauty
to poor places’” (p. 46). Summerley was none other than Sir Henry
Cole, who had introduced the Journal of Design and Manufacture in
1847 and was one of the chief organizers of the 1851 exhibition.
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