English Ceramics- Parian Ware

Parian ware, an unglazed development of biscuit porcelain, was a beautiful addition to English art when it became popular after the Staffordshre firm of Ceopeland and Garrett introduced it in 1842 as a medium for busts, statuettes, and reliefs, which were normally made out of marble.

Parian ware was not cheap, but it was much more reasonable than marble and gave households the semblance of owning a marble bust or figurine

The Worcester firm started their production of Parian relatively late, but after they launched a range at the Dublin Exhibition in 1853, their chief modeler James Hadley (1837-1903) created a large number of decorative and useful wares for them.

This was modeled by William Boynton Kirk (1824-1900), another of Worcester's modelers who produced twelve different group figures for Worcester of characters from A Midsummer Night's Dream.