The Nantgarw china works was established in 1813, when prominent china painter William Billingsley (1758-1828) and his son-in-law Samuel Walker erected kilns at Nantgarw House on the bank of the Glamorganshire Canal, Wales. Born in Derby, Billingsley had been apprenticed at William Duesbury’s Derby porcelain works and worked there for 22 years, establishing himself as an outstanding flower painter. He then moved to Pinxton and oversaw the founding of the Pinxton factory, before moving to Worcester. Billingsley was instrumental in improving the porcelain recipe used at the factory of Flight, Barr & Barr in Worcester, and worked there with his son-in-law before moving to Wales to set up their own venture at Nantgarw. They had signed an agreement with Flight, Barr & Barr which stated they could not share the porcelain recipe with a third party, however there was nothing to say they could not use the recipe themselves, and they put it into production at Nantgarw.

Like many other porcelain factories at the time, Nantgarw sent ‘blanks’ to outside decorating studios to be finished by china painters. This plate, through family provenance, is thought to have been decorated by Thomas Martin Randall, a painter who possibly spent time at Derby and Pinxton before moving to London by 1809. He worked in London for as long as 17 years, and was based in Clerkenwell between 1809-20, going into partnership with Richard Robbins in 1815 (around the same time this plate was decorated). This is an extremely finely painted presentation plate, decorated with a central Derby-style composition of fruit, flowers and drapery. The stippled background has been executed in an unusual and individual technique, devoid of the usual brushmarks. Combined with the bold turquoise border gilded in a ‘vermiculite’ pattern, this plate is a brilliant example of the high-quality painting available at specialist London decorating studios in the early 19th-century, and of the networks of exchange between factories and individual painters. Randall was a talented painter however his work is often difficult to attribute (as it is not signed), so the provenance of this plate adds to its importance.