The Music Lesson
A "copy of a copy" by Edme Sampson (referred to as
Sampson the Imitator),
Rue Beranger, Paris c.1880. 1965.310 (cer 279)
The Music Lesson is one of several intriguing pieces
of continental porcelain to be found within the Art Gallery
and Museum's ceramic collection.
The piece measures 33.4cm in height and shows a young male and
female musician wearing 18th century dress and seated on a gilded
rococo base. It was acquired as part of a bequest to the Museum
by a collector, Agnes Capel Cure of Weston-super-Mare, in 1939,
though the bequest remained untouched in its packing cases throughout
the Second World War. The museum would be very interested to
know more about the life of Miss Capel Cure and what brought
her collection to Worcester.
'The Music Lesson' is one of a number of pieces in that bequest
which is not what it seems. Collected as a piece of 18th century
Chelsea porcelain, and indeed marked with the Chelsea gold anchor
mark, it is in fact a copy not only of a Chelsea piece, but
the Chelsea piece was itself copied from a piece of Sevres porcelain.
The Sevres model, entitled La Lecon Agreable, was produced by
Etienne Maurice Falconet in the mid 18th century, which was
then copied at Chelsea by Joseph Willems in about 1763. The
difference between these models and the piece in the Museum
collection is that they were made of a much softer paste porcelain,
while on the two earlier versions the position of the figures
is reversed. This piece was in fact made and marked with the
Chelsea gold anchor in about 1880 by Edme Sampson (referred
to as Sampson the imitator) of Rue Beranger in Paris, who was
making copies of 18th century porcelain from 1873 for private
collectors and museums. The collection also contains its companion
piece, which shows a shepherd and shepherdess in the same style.
They are intriguing examples of 19th century copies of earlier
porcelain pieces.
The ceramic collection complements the important collections
held by the Museum of Worcester Porcelain and has recently been
the subject of a programme of work to upgrade and improve the
levels of documentation and knowledge by specialist curator
Harry Frost, supported by a grant from the former West Midlands
Regional Museums Council. Although the Museum's collection does
contain a number of significant Royal Worcester pieces, the
main interest today lies in the works of other potters and porcelain
manufacturers in and around Worcester which are still actively
collected, along with interesting material such as this piece
from other factories throughout Britain and Europe. The collection
is available for study and a
selection of pieces is displayed whenever possible.
