Liverpool porcelain

Liverpool porcelain, soft-paste porcelain, rather heavy and opaque, produced between 1756 and 1800 in various factories in Liverpool, England. Most of the products were exported to America and the West Indies.

The earliest factory was Richard Chaffers and Company, which first made phosphatic porcelain and then, in 1756, started producing steatitic, or soaprock, porcelain. The products resembled Worcester porcelain. Most of the plates made by the factory are octagonal, and some tea and coffee sets are six-sided. Liverpool porcelain was also produced by Philip Christian (1765–76), Chaffers’s partner, after Christian took over the factory when Chaffers died in 1765. “Biting snake” handles, palm columns, and leaf-molded teapots are characteristic of this porcelain. The Pennington factory is thought to have produced bowls and jugs painted with ships. Also attributed to Pennington is a “sticky” blue, so called because a very shiny glaze makes the particularly bright cobalt-blue enamel appear freshly painted.