Britain’s Balloon Madness: How English Potteries Responded to Contemporary Trends

By Parker Thompson

Sauntering out of Versailles: Science and Splendour at the Science Museum in London, I found myself with about 20 minutes to spare before our group moved across the street to the V&A. Having quickly made up my mind to indulge my inner child, I hurried over to Flight, the museum’s permanent gallery examining the history of aviation. Overwhelmed by the abundant hanging planes, I nearly missed the introductory cases which explore the early history of pre-plane, manned flight. Still wanting to make a beeline for the flashier objects, I held back when, out of the corner of my eye, I spotted entire cases full of late eighteenth-century hot air balloon themed objects.

Initially I was struck with wonder. I couldn’t help but question why the Science Museum had so many plates, cups, and coins decorated with hot air balloons that looked so modern in design. Looking closer, I noticed even more balloon-themed objects: pin cushions, snuffboxes, and even a fireplace bellow. Quickly I learned that following the initial manned ballooned ascents in France and England, in 1783 and 1784, respectively, the public became fascinated with the subject. Capitalizing on this “balloon madness” or “balloonomania,” as it was eventually dubbed, manufacturers of all sorts adorned their goods and sundries with these sensational flying machines.

That the public was fascinated is perhaps an understatement. Awe-struck is a more appropriate term. In 1784, a young Tuscan ambassadorial secretary by the name of Vincenzo Lunardi snatched the title for the first manned ascent in England shortly after the initial successes of brothers Joseph-Michel and Jacques-Étienne Montgolfier in France in 1783. London was buzzing with excitement in the days leading up to Lunardi’s first ascent on September 15, 1784. The night prior, one writer recorded perhaps the collective feeling among many: “It is impossible for me to write any-thing tonight but what relates to air balloons, for we can neither think, speak, nor dream, of anything else.”¹

Though the crowd estimates for Lunardi’s first flight vary, somewhere in the ballpark of 150,000 people turned out for the spectacle.² Intense public interest converged with the dominant British print culture of the period and artists and engravers quickly began to produce works celebrating the flights of Lunardi and other aeronauts. Often times, the flights documented in prints can be approximately discerned by the shape and the style of the balloon. For example, prints commemorating Lunardi and Sophie Blanchard’s flights in England usually feature a woven, square basket, whereas French balloon baskets tended toward a gondola design.³

Among those capitalizing on balloonmania were the English potteries, which produced seemingly copious quantities of earthenware goods adorned with balloon designs. Particularly common were plates, frequently executed in tin glaze, more commonly called Delftware, with designs copied directly from existing prints. One such example documented in Delftware at Historic Deerfield, 1600-1800 features a design copied from a 1784 aquatint by Francis Jukes captioned “A View of Mr. Lunardi’s Balloon.”⁴ A nearly identical plate and design can be found in Winterthur’s collection.

Existing balloon designs in print culture were not the exclusive inspiration for English potters. They likely witnessed flights firsthand, which inspired their designs. One 1785 Lunardi ascent occurred nearby the Delftware potteries, launching from St. George’s Fields in Southwark.⁵ Additionally, a handful of Blanchard’s flights began from Stockwell Road in London, just a short distance from the Vauxhall pottery.

By looking at these balloon-adorned ceramics and other goods, we begin to understand the nature of British consumer culture at the end of the eighteenth century. These ceramic objects (in addition to their non-ceramic counterparts) were especially cosmopolitan; a consumer signaled just how “in vogue” they were by purchasing them. And, in producing them, English potteries revealed how eager they were to take advantage of the trends of the moment. Before diving into “balloonomania,” I saw British ceramics and material culture primarily through a lens of antiquity, but afterward I could so clearly see how English potteries often rapidly responded to once contemporary fads and design trends. 

1. Clare Brant, Balloon Madness: Flights of Imagination in Britain, 1783-1786 (Boydell Press, 2017), 26. ↩︎
2. Leslie Gardiner, Lunardi: The Story of Vincenzo Lunardi (W. & R. Chambers, 1963), 40. ↩︎
3. Frank Britton, English Delftware in the Bristol Collection (Sotheby Publications, 1982), 162. ↩︎
4. Amanda Lange, Delftware at Historic Deerfield, 1600-1800 (Historic Deerfield, 2001), 86-87. ↩︎
5. Michael Archer, Delftware: The Tin-Glazed Earthenware of the British Isles (The Stationary Office in association with the Victoria & Albert Museum, 1997), 272-73. ↩︎