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Fountain
Royal Crown Derby Fountain and Chief Executive Hon. Hugh Gibson
The year 2000 was the 250th anniversary of the manufacture of the first recorded piece of Derby Porcelain, and it was in that year that the Royal Crown Derby Porcelain Company produced the largest piece it ever made. Its purpose was to commemorate its 250th year, as well as the Millennium itself.
Over two years before the Millennium, the management team at Royal Crown Derby decided that the company ought to produce a truly spectacular piece for this unique double event. The piece should naturally take its place in the long established tradition of porcelain manufacturers, who in the 19th Century created many showpiece productions for the prestigious International Exhibitions of that time. Royal Crown Derby's creation must be a timeless design, it must reflect the unique decorative style of the company, and it must demonstrate both the modern and the traditional skills for which Derby has been famous for 250 years.
The fountain story
John Ablitt, one of the company's leading designers, came up with the idea of producing a celebratory fountain. If this piece was to reflect the Royal Crown Derby style, it must be flamboyant and confident in character, and should contain Derby's traditional oriental design motifs and colours, in particular cobalt blue and 24 carat burnished gold. Such materials could not withstand outside weather conditions, so the fountain must be designed for indoors, and therefore the water must flow gently and without splashing.
Taking these factors into account, John's concept involved a mahogany base, concealing a pump and supporting a mosaic-lined bowl, from which rose a column, which in turn supported a fringed gallery, topped by a cupola and crown. The crown was to be a replica of the massive cast iron crown, which sits on top of the dome above the main façade of the present day factory, on Osmaston Road in Derby.
The water would be pumped from a tank concealed in the base, up the column into a hidden reservoir beneath the gallery, and would then flow down strands of filament threaded with clear and coloured crystal. Light would be projected from a hidden source in the base through fibre optic cables in the column, to illuminate the gallery and the waterfall.
Fountain Designer - John Ablitt
John and the rest of his team were very excited by the concept and quickly decided to proceed with the project. However, they had never built a fountain before, and had no real idea of what was involved. Furthermore, the material of which all Royal Crown Derby is made, fine bone china, is unforgiving to potters who wish to produce the flat surfaces and straight lines which the design required; it distorts easily in firing at high temperature. Crown Derby's potters needed all their skills to meet this challenge.
Despite this, when the potters had succeeded in producing the exquisite pure white tiles and embossments in John Ablitt's design, the graphic technicians and hand gilders were presented with a wonderful series of canvases upon which to demonstrate their skills. Following John's drawings, they set to work to create a dazzling arrangement of patterns and motifs, incorporating frogs, turtles and lizards for the water areas, and exotic birds for the upper regions. The results were stunning.