Painting China

A plate from the 1876 exhibit (courtesy of Rogers Museum.)

One of the joys of writing a biography is learning about tangential things in the course of one’s research. For example, while researching Ethel Payne’s childhood, I learned that her mother Bessie was a china painter, an art form I knew nothing about.
    It turns out to have been a very popular pastime. The hobby of hand painting and firing china, which some made into a profession, took hold in the United States in the late nineteenth century. An exhibit at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition exposed millions of Americans to this new art form. “In the early 1900s there were hundreds of unnamed and unknown fine female china painters and artists who lapsed into obscurity because no one felt their lives needed documentation,” according to the Journal of Antiques. “Allowed creative occupations and hobbies, they were never allowed to achieve professional status like their male counterparts.”

   Bessie Payne was among those women who took up the hobby after taking a class, one of many that were taught after the art form gained popularity. She would do her work by drawing patterns on blank china and then fill them in with color. She favored fruits and flowers, according to Ethel. After completing her painting work, she would bake the item in a small kiln she kept in the house.
    “People began asking for these pieces, and at first, she was giving away pieces, and then somebody said, ‘No, Bessie, you should be getting money for this.’”
    “So then she began—she never did it on a large scale, but it was enough to bring in a little extra change,” said Ethel. “But she did beautiful work. Incidentally, she handed it down, the profession, down to one of her grandchildren, who became quite adept at it.”