An English Enamel Casket: Probably Battersea, London

Circa 1752 to 1755

This remarkable enamel casket ranks among the most accomplished survivals of mid eighteenth century English enamelwork, distinguished by its unusual scale, refinement of painting and exceptional richness of ornament. In both ambition and execution it stands apart from the majority of known English enamel boxes of the period.

The casket is formed as an octagonal box, each side painted with a finely observed bouquet of flowers, some tied with fluttering ribbons, others loosely arranged and animated by butterflies and insects in flight. The painting is confident and fluid, with a delicacy of line and a sophisticated handling of colour that place it among the very finest flower painting in English enamel.

The slightly domed cover is centred with a long rectangular plaque painted after Hubert-François Gravelot’s celebrated composition A Game of Quadrille. Executed in a rich and varied enamel palette, the scene captures the elegance and sociability of fashionable London life in the 1740s. The shoulders of the casket are canted and set with eight narrow panels of gilt Chinese fretwork reserved on a deep black ground, lending the object a striking note of chinoiserie refinement and architectural clarity.

A Game of Quadrille was designed by Gravelot for Francis Hayman as part of an ambitious decorative scheme for the supper boxes at Vauxhall Gardens, one of the most fashionable pleasure grounds of mid eighteenth century London. The original painting by Hayman, dating from about 1743, is today preserved in Birmingham, while the composition was widely disseminated through an engraving by Charles Grignion. The inclusion of this subject on the present casket firmly situates it within a London cultural context, closely aligned with contemporary urban taste and entertainment.

The attribution of English enamels has long been a matter of debate. During the early twentieth century, many of the most refined examples were assigned to the short-lived York House Battersea works, established by John Brooks with the backing of Alderman Stephen Theodore Janssen and active between about 1753 and their bankruptcy in 1756. Subsequent scholarship by Bernard Rackham, Bernard Watney and Robert Charleston reassessed this position, arguing persuasively for major production centres in the Midlands, particularly Bilston and Birmingham, while restricting Battersea primarily to finely printed wares after engraved designs.

Archaeological excavations at York House, Battersea, undertaken between 1996 and 1998, have significantly altered this understanding. The discovery of enamel wasters, including examples painted with flowers and insects, alongside evidence for broader ceramic production, has confirmed that richly painted enamels were indeed produced at Battersea. Moreover, scholars have noted the close stylistic relationship between the finest Battersea flower painting and that seen at Chelsea porcelain during the early Red Anchor period of about 1752 to 1755.

In light of this evidence, the present casket can be convincingly attributed to Battersea itself. The superb quality of the flower painting, its stylistic proximity to Chelsea, and the use of a subject so closely associated with Vauxhall Gardens, located just a short distance downriver from Battersea, together support a London origin and a date in the early to mid 1750s.