A London-decorated Paris porcelain teapot and cover from the 'Baltic' service, circa 1802
Of cylindrical shape, decorated with a border of oak leaves and gilded acorns, both sides with panel formed from a victor's laurel wreath enclosing fouled anchor, within a gilt inscription 'Nelson 2nd April Baltic', the handle and spout flanked by further gilt lettering '15th Febry', 'San Josef', and 'Glorious 1st August', the cover with additional oak leaves reserved with banderols inscribed 'Nelson San Josef' and 'Nelson Aboukir', 14.5cm high (2)
Footnotes:
Provenance
Reverend William Nelson, 1st Earl Nelson
Hilare Barlow, Dowager Countess Nelson, Duchess of Bronte
Colin Florence Joyce (1889-1968)
Bonhams, 1 April 2015, lot 27

The origin of the Baltic Service is uncertain but it is traditionally believed that the set was part of a presentation of chinaware given to Nelson in 1802 by the Ladies of the City of London. In that year Nelson was invited to ride in the Lord Mayor's Coach in the inaugural procession, and he then attended a banquet in his honour. Nelson's niece, Charlotte Nelson accompanied him and described the excitement of the event ...

'... I wish you could have seen all the people jumping up to the carriage to see my uncle and thousands of people round him looking up at him... All the ladies had their handkerchiefs out of the windows when my uncle passed, they and the people calling out 'Nelson for Ever''

Several distinct sets were made for Nelson with a border of oak leaves and these were given separate names. The 'Nelson set', which is well represented in this sale, was a dessert service of Paris porcelain and a tea service of Coalport, all decorated with Nelson's arms. The separate 'Baltic Set' was a tea service and a dessert set both of Paris porcelain. There is also a dinner service listed under the heading as part of the Baltic Set, and this is creamware.

If the traditional story is true, (and it was circulating as least as early as 1865), then the various Baltic and Nelson Services will have been created in some haste ahead of the Lord Mayor's inauguration. It is likely that a London decorating workshop, or several workshops, was approached to fill the commission. There were many independent china decorators working in London and they used whatever blank porcelain was available to them. For the Nelson Set, a mixture of Coalport and Paris porcelain was used. In the 'Baltic Set' the surviving tea wares show that only French 'hard paste' porcelain was used.

We know that a Baltic pattern tea service was delivered to Merton, the house Nelson shared with Emma, for it is listed in the circa 1813 'Trickey Inventory'. Nelson's will had left much of the contents of 'Paradise Merton' to Emma, but following his death at Trafalgar, most of the valuable contents of Merton were claimed by Nelson's brother William. When two of the account books of Nelson's Estate were discovered (Bonhams sale, 4 November 2008, lot 414), these showed that a payment was made on 11 February 1807 by Nelson's estate to Asser & Co for 'packing & dividing china.'

The Trickey inventory and others from 1813-1814, were used by Lady Hamilton as surety for various loans. These inventories show that, according to the terms of Nelson's will, Emma did inherit most of the household china from Merton, including a Baltic Set tea service, but only after Asser & Co had divided it and packed it into crates. Some household china was sold in 1813, but most stayed in these crates, held in store by Alderman J J Smith, a former Lord Mayor of London who had loaned money partly to cover Emma's debts and free her from debtor's prison.

Another slightly larger teaset of the Baltic pattern belonged to Nelson's sister Catherine 'Kitty' Matcham and this featured in Sotheby's sale of the Matcham Collection, Nelson and the Napoleonic Wars, 5 October 2005, lot 22. This included a teapot of the same shape as the present lot. According to family tradition another set for dessert with an oak leaf border had been painted by Catherine herself as a gift for her brother Horatio Nelson. It is conceivable the dessert service and her Baltic tea set had both been passed on to her by her brother because they were surplus to Nelson's needs.

The present teapot probably formed part of a further set of the Baltic porcelain given to Nelson's brother, William. William, 1st Earl Nelson married Hilare Barlow in March 1829. Hilare was the daughter of Admiral Sir Robert Barlow G.B.C. whose illustrious naval career included command of HMS Triumph, part of Nelson's fleet in the Mediterranean. Following William's death in February 1835, Hilare married for the third time to George Knight, the nephew of Jane Austen, although Hilare kept the name of Nelson, styling herself Dowager Countess Nelson, Duchess of Bronte. When Hilare Nelson died in 1857, this teapot passed to her niece, Florence Catherine Elizabeth Barlow and then to her daughter, Colin Joyce who bequeathed it to her cousin, Hilare Margaret Barlow, whose daughter sold it at Bonhams in 2015.

Other pieces from William Nelson's 'Baltic' Service were probably inherited by Nelson's niece, Charlotte, Duchess of Bronte, who was William Nelson's daughter from his first marriage. Charlotte Nelson may also have acquired part of Emma's Baltic Set from Alderman Smith. Charlotte married Samuel Hood, Baron Bridport and Nelson's porcelain and many other relics were inherited by his son Alexander Nelson, Viscount Bridport. Lord Bridport's sale at Christie's in July 1895 featured eleven lots of what was left of his family's Baltic tea service, but there was no teapot. Other Baltic Set pieces are in the Nelson-Ward Collection bequeathed to the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich in 1946 by the grandson of Horatia Nelson-Ward.