Flask thumbnail 1
Flask thumbnail 2
On display
Image of Gallery in South Kensington

Flask

1784 (made)
Artist/Maker
Place of origin

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. The English delfware researcher Frank 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.

Object details

Categories
Object type
Materials and techniques
Tin-glazed earthenware, painted
Brief description
Bottle, tin-glazed earthenware, painted decoration of flowers, landscape, a balloon and an inscription, London (Lambeth High Street, Thomas Morgan and Abigail Griffith), 1784.
Physical description
Bottle of tin-glazed earthenware. One side has a landscape with a balloon, and the other has flowers and festoons of husks. The neck has a bird, butterflies and a flower spray. The shoulders have the inscription: James & Ann Tompson. 1784. All the decoration is in blue with the exception of the balloon which is in yellow and manganese-purple.
Body colour: Buff.
Glaze: Bluish white, pooling at the foot and finely crazed. A circular area on one side, which adhered to a sagger or other object in the firing, was subsequently broken off and abraded flat. The underside is wiped clean of glaze with the exception of the recess.
Shape: The underside is flat with a circular rounded recess in the middle the depth of the foot.
Dimensions
  • Height: 16.4cm
  • Length: 12cm
  • Width: 4.3cm
Marks and inscriptions
'James & Ann Tompson. 1784'. (Inscribed in blue on shoulder)
Credit line
Transferred from the Museum of Practical Geology, Jermyn Street
Object history
Acquired by the Museum of Practical Geology before 1871. Transferred, 1901.
Subjects depicted
Summary
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. The English delfware researcher Frank 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.
Bibliographic references
  • 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. ISBN 0 11 290499 8
  • M.P.G. 1871, Y.15. M.P.G. 1876, Y.19. Lipski and Archer, No: 1507 and Pl: XIII.
  • Massey, Roger. Later London delftware 1780-1810. English Ceramics Circle Transactions, 2012, Volume 23, pp. 127-142. Illustrated fig. 30, 136p as an example of a novel, late shape produced by London manufactories.
Other number
E15. - <u>Delftware</u> (1997) cat. no.
Collection
Accession number
3846-1901

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Record createdJanuary 29, 2000
Record URL
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