Mourning Britannia 1751 Saint James's Factory This figure group was created to commemorate Frederick, Prince of Wales, who died at the age of forty- four in 1751. Frederick was the heir apparent to the British throne, and his early death meant that his father, George II (1683–1760), king of Britain and Ireland, was succeeded by Frederick’s son, who reigned as George III (1738–1820). In this figure group, the reclining female represents Britannia, the personification of the British Isles, and she holds an oval medallion with the profile portrait in low relief of Frederick. The figure of Britann

Mourning Britannia 1751 Saint James's Factory This figure group was created to commemorate Frederick, Prince of Wales, who died at the age of forty- four in 1751. Frederick was the heir apparent to the British throne, and his early death meant that his father, George II (1683–1760), king of Britain and Ireland, was succeeded by Frederick’s son, who reigned as George III (1738–1820). In this figure group, the reclining female represents Britannia, the personification of the British Isles, and she holds an oval medallion with the profile portrait in low relief of Frederick. The figure of Britannia rests on a globe with her shield to one side and a lion lying at her feet. The shield alludes to her might, the globe represents the dominions over which she prevails, and the lion is the traditional symbol of England. The female figure’s head is bowed in grief, and she dries one eye while a tear falls from the different components of the group are skillfully combined, creating a harmonious and successful composition despite the fact that the modeling of Britannia herself is somewhat rudimentary and naive. Her elongated body, small feet, and distinctive facial features link this figure stylistically with a small number of figures and groups that display similar characteristics. None of these works bears a factory mark, and their place of manufacture was much debated until documentation emerged in the early 1990s that answered several basic questions about their origin.[1] It is now believed that these figures were produced at a small London factory run by Charles Gouyn (French, d. 1785), who had worked at the Chelsea factory. This information is revealed by a manuscript written in 1759 by a French scientist, Jean Hellot (1685–1766), who states that Gouyn, whom he describes as a founder of the Chelsea factory, left to establish his own factory in St. James’s Street where he made “very beautiful small porcelain figures.”[2] Other documentary evidence

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