Bristolporcelain.com started as the public presentation of the Cheyne Row Collection of Bristol and Plymouth porcelain. The Cheyne Row Collection is a significant private collection of Lund's Bristol, Cookworthy's Plymouth & Bristol and Champion's Bristol porcelain. It has since evolved to cover major public collections as well, bringing together (digitally) collections and services that are spread around the world.
I built this site primarily as a tool to help me understand both the collection and the broader universe of Bristol and Plymouth porcelain better. There are numerous filtering and comparison tools on the site and much of the data describing pieces has been normalized to enable meaningful analysis. Some of the fields describing pieces (eg DESCRIPTION) come largely from third parties like dealers and auction houses. Others which are normalized (eg MARK GROUP or DATE) I have populated myself. This is why on a number of pieces you will see inconsistent dates or marks – it reflects where a dealer or auction house has recorded a different date or mark from what I observe. You can judge for yourself which is correct. Like the collection itself, the categorization of pieces on the site and the analytic tools are always evolving as I learn more.
The data and images of public collection all come from public sources and remain property of those institutions. The quality of the data varies significantly. I have worked with what is available publicly.
I am lucky to have access to a great deal of historical documentation about the Plymouth and Bristol factories and the individuals associated with them and this historical content is getting added over time. Inevitably there will be lots of mistakes. If you see anything obviously wrong or have interesting content to add please contact me. enquiries@bristolporcelain.com
A few people have asked me if they can buy pieces from the Cheyne Row Collection. I'm a collector, not a dealer, so selling isn't my first instinct! I'm open to trading pieces to help others fill gaps in their collections and I'm obviously delighted to buy collections. Just email me. enquiries@bristolporcelain.com