Open basketwork, symbolizing dessert, referred to the tradition of using woven baskets for harvesting and serving fruit. Josiah Wedgwood (1730–1795) and other potters imitated these earlier baskets in pierced creamware. Wedgwood's first creamware catalog issued in 1774 illustrated an orange basket. The form is still made at the modern factory. Orange or chestnut basket made by Wedgwood Factory (1759–present), stamped "WEDGWOOD” and "O” on base, Etruria, Staffordshire, England, circa 1780. Historic Deerfield, museum purchase with funds provided by Ray J. and Anne K. Groves.
:"At the age of 40, I decided that I would rather be an antiques dealer than practice at the bar," the London antiquary Alistair Sampson wrote in
Cabinet Secrets
, a collection of whimsical essays on collecting and dealing that he first began penning for
Punch
magazine in 1984.
Sampson's seduction and eventual defection from his legal career — tongue-in-cheek, he wrote that his greatest struggle was "waking up in time to get to court by 10:30 am" — began with English creamware. In the 1960s, it was still loosely referred to by Sampson and others as Leeds Pottery, even though many firms manufactured creamware and not all Leeds was the enamel-free variety favored by Sampson.
Sampson sold his first creamware collection at Christie's in 1967 on the eve of his marriage to Camilla Madoc. He wanted his new wife to, as he put it, "move her bits and bobs into the cupboard, which had previously been home to 80 teapots."
Creamware nevertheless remained one of his great loves. The dealer mingled it with the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century English furniture, delftware, treen, needlework and naive painting that he so artfully displayed in his Mount Street gallery and at antiques shows in New York and London.
One rarity of the collection is a matched set of four neoclassical-style candlesticks, of which two are shown here, on vase-shaped stems with scroll handles and swags of husks. While unmarked, these candlesticks strongly resemble one illustrated in James and Charles Whitehead's 1798 pattern book. James and Charles Whitehead Factory (working 1796–1813), Hanley, Staffordshire, England, 1796–1800. Historic Deerfield, museum purchase with funds provided by Ray J. and Anne K. Groves.
The Sampsons also had a private collection of creamware, beautifully displayed on mantels and shelves in their St John's Wood, London, home. As Alistair Sampson once explained, "Nothing is more decorative than a selection of the early forms in plain creamware displayed against a colored background."
As a collector, Sampson was interested in illustrating the stylistic evolution and great formal diversity of the earthenware first produced in Staffordshire, England, in the 1740s using calcined flint clay and a lead glaze that, when fired, turned a transparent creamy-white.
Alistair Sampson died on January 13, 2006, age 76. In June 2006, the Sampson firm merged with Jonathan Horne to create Sampson & Horne Antiques. Sampson's creamware collection was once again destined for auction when Anne K. and Ray J. Groves got wind of the sale.
A Historic Deerfield trustee since 1991, Anne Groves currently chairs the museum's board. In addition to being an avid sponsor of many of the museum's building and collections initiatives, Groves collects Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century delft and Eighteenth Century salt glaze and decorated creamware objects. Some of her best pieces came from Alistair Sampson.
