"A maroon ground introduced by Walker from Nantgarw about 1822 The deep mazarine blue of Derby reproduced at Coalport is quite equal to Derby pieces in tone. The rich ground colours of old Sèvres porcelain were copied with great success at Coalport particularly the turquoise blue and the rose du Barri."
"The Coalport enamelers may be quite as skillful - nay, much more so - than those of the Coalport ateliers, but their work is intended to make a greater show and attract more attention than that of the Coalport artists. Turquoise is their great material for exhibition. The article to be enameled is first covered with gold, fired, and nicely burnished. Then the enamel is laid on the graduated dots (to make it plain to the reader) from large to small in perfect sizes and pattern. Small articles for cabinets and ornament as tiny bon-bon boxes, jewel cases, scent bottles, etc., and on very small articles sometimes shows several hundred dots of enamel. Cups and saucers are also decorated in the same fashion, and such articles being from $8 or $10 each to $50 in retail shops.
Besides a very elaborate employment of turquoise blue enamel, they also use enamels, imitating pearls and other translucent gems. With opals particularly they are very successful. The center of the article or space to be decorated first has a gold design in imitation of jewelry work, sometimes with raised paste, oftener flat. After firing and slightly polishing, the enamels are laid on for the second firing.
The method of work is kept as great a secret as possible, and the imitation of opals, which is accomplished with a combination of transparent and semi-opaque enamels, is really marvelous. Since imitating jewels with glass has become so successful and popular, it is possible that these so called enamel opals are in reality glass jewels. It would be quite possible to make one appear quite like the other without detection, but the artists and manufacturers say the work is enameling, and there is no reason why they should misrepresent facts."
"A new departure is the "Chalcedony," still Coalport, but with a new blue for grounding and a perfect imitation of moss-agate, introduced with all the shadings and beauty of the real stones. Lovely plates, the centre pieces, miniatures, copied from the portraits of Reynolds and Gainesborough, again the café noir cups and saucers, the grounding the brown of the coffee berry with decorations of bright gold - the inside of cup entirely burnished gold. This delicate, exquisite porcelain seems adapted to fancy pieces for gift and cabinet purposes and the dressing tables of the fair women of many countries are beautiful with its graceful, dainty presentations."
"The Coalport China Company - Rarely have more beautiful or costly pieces of china been sent to any exhibition than those forwarded to Chicago by the Coalport Company. Plates, vases, and trinket boxes comprise the greater part of this magnificent display. A specialty is the chalcedony decoration, which reproduces the hues of the agate, and there is a lovely Sèvres glaze on the ware, and the precious stone appears to have been inlaid. Two graceful vases a present for Princess Christian are adorned with this scheme."
"A specialty of the Coalport China company's exhibits is its reproduction in chalcedony of the hues of agate, as may be seen in two of its vases intended for Princess Christiana."
"The Coalport China Company, in addition to a number of new goods in their first-class artistic ornamental wares, are making many novelties in useful ware, but all elegant in shape and rich in decoration. Some of their new decorations, introduced for exhibition at Chicago, will be seen this season in many of their productions for home purposes. The latest novelty they have, the "Chalcedony," is perfectly unique. It is a splendid imitation in china of "moss agate," and is most artistically introduced into almost every useful article made by the firm, dessert plates, teas, scent bottles, plaques, wall pockets, and even teacups and saucers, are all shown with this realistic imitation agate, introduced with fine effect."
Gallery of Scent Bottles:
Elaborately jeweled examples were included in Coalport's display at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago and won a gold medal and garnered much publicity. I suspect many of the designs looked like the ones below.