A Coalport breakfast cup and saucer from the 'Nelson Set Tea Service', circa 1802
Of distinctive shape and large size, the border of green oak leaves and gold acorns used on both the interior and exterior of the cup and around the saucer, the full arms and insignia of Nelson filling the centre of the saucer, the cup with the shield and motto 'TRIA JUNCTA IN UNO' beneath a coronet flanked by the crests of the San Josef and the chelengk, the saucer 16cm diam (2)
Footnotes:
Provenance
Vice-Admiral Horatio, Lord Nelson
Emma, Lady Hamilton
Viscount Bridport, Christie's, 11 July 1895, lot 43
Charles Wentworth Wass Collection, Phillips, 6 December 1995, lot 324

Various inventories of Lady Hamilton's possessions, used as sureties for loans, include a circa 1813 list, known as the Trickey Inventory, of 'Plate China Glass &c belonging to Lady Hamilton'. According to the terms of Nelson's will, Emma had inherited most of the household china, including the Horatia, Nelson and Baltic sets. The list of items in the 'Nelson Set' included a Dessert Service and a 'tea service', although this should more-correctly have been listed as a Breakfast Set. The set didn't include any teapot, but two bowls were present along with a sugar basin and a cream ewer.

Curiously, the 1813 inventory lists '24 Cups and 13 Saucers', which has to be a mistake. More than thirteen saucers from the set survive today. It is impossible to believe that eleven saucers had been broken prior to 1813, and the only logical explanation is that whoever drew up the inventory meant to write '24 Cups and 23 Saucers'. One saucer had probably been broken, not eleven of them.

Unfortunately, Emma's financial problems meant that she had to part with almost everything in return for loans. Much of Emma's china had been packed into crates and stored in Samuel Trickey's warehouse under instructions from Alderman J J Smith who kept her possessions as surety against money he had advanced to bail Emma out of debtor's prison. These crates were stored by Smith until at least 1831. Emma's daughter, Horatia and her husband had attempted to reclaim what she felt was hers by right, and their correspondence with Alderman Smith mentions 'the service you are anxious to possess with the arms of Nelson' (Prentice, p.22).

Alderman Smith did, apparently return items to different members of Nelson's family, probably in exchange for money. Anything that Smith had not distributed was sold when he died in 1844. It is likely that the 'Nelson Set Tea Service' was passed from Alderman Smith to Nelson's niece, Charlotte, Duchess of Bronte, who had married Samuel Hood, Baron Bridport. On his death in 1868 his Nelson relics passed to their son, Alexander Nelson, Viscount Bridport. Thus, what remained of this set was sold in Lord Bridport's sale at Christie's on 11 July 1895.

A contemporary newspaper cutting attached to the back of this saucer by Wentworth Wass discusses the sale of this tea service, catalogued in 1895 as of Bristol porcelain but believed by 'enthusiastic collectors' to be of Worcester Pottery. The Bridport auction included a large part of the Nelson tea set and part of the Baltic set. In the Christie's sale ten pairs of breakfast cups and saucers sold for between 20 guineas and 36 guineas per pair. The present cup and saucer, together with the following lot, comprised one of these pairs, purchased at the sale by Charles Wentworth Wass. An annotated copy of the Bridport sale catalogue, shows that Wass was the buyer of lot 43, one pair of cups and saucers, for £37.16s. One of these cups and saucers is illustrated with a selection of Nelson China from the Wentworth Wass collection in Beresford and Wilson, Nelson and his Times (circa 1899), p.156. Both were then exhibited as part of the Wentworth Wass Collection at Thomas Goode's in South Audley Street in 1898, cat. no.61.