La Nourrice ca. 1753–55 Chelsea Porcelain Manufactory The production of figures was a major focus for the Chelsea factory for much of its history, and the prominence accorded to figural work coincided with the arrival of the modeler Joseph Willems (Flemish, 1715/16–1766) at the factory in 1748, at which time his name is first recorded. Like Nicholas Sprimont (Walloon, 1716–1771),[1] Willems was from the Low Countries, and it is clear that he was a capable sculptor by the time of his arrival in England,[2] although nothing is known of his training prior to 1748. It appears that Willems assumed

La Nourrice ca. 1753–55 Chelsea Porcelain Manufactory The production of figures was a major focus for the Chelsea factory for much of its history, and the prominence accorded to figural work coincided with the arrival of the modeler Joseph Willems (Flemish, 1715/16–1766) at the factory in 1748, at which time his name is first recorded. Like Nicholas Sprimont (Walloon, 1716–1771),[1] Willems was from the Low Countries, and it is clear that he was a capable sculptor by the time of his arrival in England,[2] although nothing is known of his training prior to 1748. It appears that Willems assumed complete responsibility for the factory’s porcelain sculpture upon his employment, and all of the models introduced between around 1749 and 1766 are regarded as his work.[3] Willems’s output at Chelsea was prodigious, and while he drew on a wide variety of sources for his figures and groups, he created what amounted to a factory style, as has been observed by Hilary Young.[4] Willems’s versatility is evident by the types of figures he created, including the Italian commedia dell’arte, street merchants, chinoiserie figures, birds and animals, and figures personifying the Five Senses. Although he frequently looked to the work of other artists, and to the figures of Johann Joachim Kändler (German, 1706–1775) at Meissen in particular, Willems’s skill as a modeler ensured that his figures transcended mere ’s seated woman nursing a baby was one of the most popular figures made at Chelsea and produced over a number of years. The model first appeared during the Raised Anchor period (1749–52); however, the majority of surviving examples date from the second half of the 1750s and thus bear the red anchor mark used during those years.[5] This model of a nursing woman is known as La Nourrice, and its French name derives from the seventeenth-century French pottery figures of the same composition, one of which must have served as the source for Willems

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