The balloon ascent of Vincenzo Lunardi

A balloon above a house and trees within a border of leaf sprays and festoons in blue, yellow, manganese-purple and green. The feathered rim is in blue.
Body colour: Buff.
Glaze: Greeny bluish, pooling at the rim on the back.
Shape: Shape M. (Alphabetic shape codes as used in appendix to Archer. Delftware. 1997)

Mellor Bequest

Note for delftware flask 3846-1901,commemorating Lunardi reads:
This flask commemorates the first aerial voyage made in Great Britain. Vincenzo Lunardi, a Tuscan, though secretary to the Neapolitan Embassy, made his first ascent on 15 September 1784 from the ground of the Honourable Artillery Company at Moorfields in the City of London. He was accompanied by a pigeon, a cat, a dog, a bottle of wine and a leg of chicken. He touched down briefly at North Mimms, where the cat abandoned ship, and finally landed near Ware in Hertfordshire. The distance was twenty-four miles and it was covered in two hours and a quarter. Describing the event the Gentleman's Magazine reported: 'The balloon was seen to rise, with all the majesty that heart could wish, to the astonishment of millions, who, scarcely open to conviction, beheld it with a kind of awful terror, which rather closed their lips to stupid silence, then prompted them to rend the air, as might have been expected, with joyful acclamations'(The Gentleman's Magazine and Historical Chronicle , 1784 (Part II), p.711). In his own account of the ascent, printed for the author in 1784, Lunardi wrote that after a sudden silence the crowd 'passed from incredulity and menace to the most extravagant expressions of approbation and joy'. On landing, some terrified labourers refused to help him, until persuaded by a girl working with them, exclaiming that 'they would have nothing to do with one who came in the Devil's house (or possibly Devil's horse)'. Later in the same year he exhibited his balloon at the Pantheon. This flight and subsequent ones made in the following year - one from St. George's Fields, Southwark, close to the delftware potteries - aroused considerable interest, as did the flight by Jean Pierre Blanchard and Dr John Jeffries, his American patron, on 7 January 1785, when they crossed the Channel from England to France. In order to gain height they desperately jettisoned all extra weight, including Blanchard's trousers. Both Lunardi's and Blanchard's flights are recorded on English delftware. Various visual records were available to the potters including an aquatint by Jukes and an admission ticket fro Lunardi's ascent (For material relating to ballooning, see Bonham's catalogue of the sale of a collection of Fine Ballooning Art, 16:12:1991). Garner found a number of fragments of dishes showing a Lunardi ascent. The shape of the cage under the balloon shown on the Museum's flask indicates that it is the one used on the first ascent (The author is grateful to Charles Gibbs-Smith for information supplied for this entry).

Archer, Michael. Delftware: the tin-glazed earthenware of the British Isles. A catalogue of the collection in the Victoria and Albert Museum. London: HMSO, in association with the Victoria and Albert Museum, 1997.

Thomas Morgan and Abigail Griffith, 1785 or a little later

In his catalogue of the delftware collection in the Victoria and Albert Museum, Michael Archer relates the wonder, amazement and fear with which people greeted the intrepid Vicenzo Lunardi (1759-1806) on his balloon ascents in 1784 and 1785. Lunardi was a Tuscan, though Secretary to the Neapolitain Embassy in London. His first ascent took place from the ground of the Honourable Artillery Company at Moorfields in the City of London. He was accompanied by a pigeon, a dog, a bottle of wine and a leg of chicken. Lunardi touched down briefly at North Mimms where the cat ran off and finally landed near Ware in Hertfordshire. The distance was twenty-four miles and it was covered in two and a quarter hours. Describing the event the Gentleman's Magazine reported: 'The balloon was seen to rise, with all the majesty that the heart could wish, to the astonishment of millions, who, scarcely open to conviction, beheld it with a kind of awful terror, which rather closed their lips to stupid silence, then prompted them to rend the air, as might have been expected, with joyful acclamations'. In his own account of the ascent, printed for the author in 1784, Lunardi wrote that after a sudden silence the crowd 'passed from incredulity and menace to the most extravagant expressions of approbation and joy'. On landing, some terrified labourers refused to help him until persuaded by a girl working with them, exclaiming that 'they would have nothing to do with one who came in the Devil's house (or possibly Devil's horse)'. Later in the same year he exhibited his balloon at the Pantheon. This flight and subsequent ones made in the following year - one from St. George's Fields, Southwark (close to the delftware potteries) aroused considerable interest, as did the flight by Jean Pierre Blanchard and Dr John Jeffries, his American patron, on 7 January 1785, when they crossed the Channel from England to France. In order to gain height they desperately jettisoned all extra weight, including Blanchard's trousers. Both Lunardi's and Blanchard's flights are recorded on English delftware. Various prints were available to the potters to copy, including an aquatint by Jukes and an admission ticket from Lunardi's ascent.

The balloon ascent shown on this plate appears to be one of those made by Lunardi. The plate has typical characteristics of the London delftware potteries at the end of the eighteenth century. These include the manner of painting the foliage of the bushes and trees rather like layered palm fronds, the festoons and the feathered edge and simple leaf sprays on the border, made up of dots.

Information taken from Archer, Michael. Delftware: the tin-glazed earthenware of the British Isles. A catalogue of the collection in the Victoria and Albert Museum. London: HMSO, in association with the Victoria and Albert Museum, 1997.

CIRC.52-1963