Parian – marble-like in appearance, with its ever fresh, white, rather sculptured style, takes it’sname from a resemblance to the fine, pure white marble ofneoclassic sculpture and was firstknown as ?statuary porcelain?.In the 18th century, the French were thefirst toproduce stunning, pure white, unglazed porcelain figuresat the famous Sevres factory not far from Paris. Josiah Wedgwood with his long experimentation with jasper-ware,then named it “Carrara,” after the Italian quarry patronized by Michelangelo. Parian became popular and was soon produced by other English and Americanmid 19th centurymanufacturers. The official catalogue of the Great Exhibition of 1851 gives Thomas Battam credit for inventing Parian, saying”he succeeded in producing a very perfect imitation of marble, both in surface and in tint”. While Battam may have invented it, several English factories claimed credit for its development.But the Staffordshire firm operated by William Taylor Cop Beswick Figurines of Beatrix Potter Characters eland and Thomas Garrett was the first to produce and sell it in 1842, and went on to become one of its majorproductions. Howeverit was Minton, in the mid 19th century,who finallycoined the word “Parian”after Paros, the Greek island that furnished much of the pure, whitemarble used in the classical period and so it quickly became the accepted name. Parianfigures were produced by being cast moulded, i.e.,liquid porcelain, known as slip, was poured into acast. After drying,the model wasremoved from the cast andfinishedby hand, prior to the firing. Technically speaking, Parian is an unglazed, or, biscuit porcelain. The Antique and Vintage Table Lamp Co, currentlyhave listed,two antique parian figures as table lamps -A very sweet, mid 19th century, English, Parian-ware figure, emblematic of summer, mounted as a table lamp. A charming subject of a young girl caught in the action ofskipping bare footed across a summer meadow, her long skirt billowing out behind her.
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