page_title: Welsh art
section_title: Decorative arts
hierarchical_section_title: Welsh art / Decorative arts
caption_attribution_description: English: England, circa 1817 Furnishings; Serviceware Porcelain Gift of Mr. Walter T. Wells (55.101.4b) Decorative Arts and Design
context_page_description: Welsh art refers to the traditions in the visual arts associated with Wales and its people. Most art found in, or connected with, Wales is essentially a regional variant of the forms and styles of the rest of the British Isles, a very different situation from that of Welsh literature. The term Art in Wales is often used in the absence of a clear sense of what "Welsh art" is, and to include the very large body of work, especially in landscape art, produced by non-Welsh artists in Wales since the later 18th century.
context_section_description: South Wales had several notable potteries in the late 18th and 19th centuries, beginning with the Cambrian Pottery (1764–1870, also known as "Swansea pottery") and including Nantgarw Pottery near Cardiff, which was in operation from 1813 to 1822 making fine porcelain, and then utilitarian pottery until 1920.  Portmeirion Pottery (from 1961) has never in fact been made in Wales.
  Despite the fact that considerable quantities of silver (in association with lead), and much smaller amounts of gold, were mined in Wales, there was little silversmithing in Wales in the Early Modern period.  It did not help that the Crown gave itself ownership of mines of precious metals, which were largely used for minting currency, some of which was marked with the Prince of Wales's feathers to show its origin.  The Welsh gentry mostly had their silver made in English cities.
caption: Swansea porcelain plate, c. 1817
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