Nantgarw porcelain is a fine, highly translucent soft-paste porcelain made at Nantgarw, near Cardiff in South Wales, in the early nineteenth century. It was the creation of the celebrated porcelain painter and maker William Billingsley, who had previously worked at Derby and Pinxton, together with his son-in-law Samuel Walker.
The factory was founded in 1813 and produced a porcelain of exceptional whiteness and translucency, admired as rivalling the finest French wares. However, the paste was notoriously difficult to fire, with very high losses in the kiln. For a period, production moved to Swansea, where Billingsley and Walker worked alongside the Cambrian Pottery, before returning to Nantgarw, where the factory ceased production around 1820. Much of the output was sold in the white and decorated in London, while other pieces were painted in Wales by artists including Thomas Pardoe. Plates, dessert services and cabinet pieces are typically decorated with flowers, fruit, birds and landscapes. The impressed mark NANT-GARW C.W. appears on many pieces, though painted marks were also faked. Because production was brief and losses high, Nantgarw porcelain is rare and keenly collected, particularly by collectors of Welsh ceramics.
