The ormolu of Matthew Boulton.(Mathew Boulton: Ormolu by Nicholas Goodison)(Book Review)

Matthew Boulton: Ormolu, by, Nicholas Goodison (Christie's Books, distributed by Antique Collectors' Club 800-252-5231), $140.00 (hardcovers).

Matthew Boulton is best known for collaborating with James Watt on a steam engine and for creating the stamping presses the Royal Mint in London used from 1805 until 1882. The manufacture of ormolu was a distinctly minor activity at the renowned Soho manufactory near Birmingham operated by the partnership of Boulton and John Fothergill. Yet Nicholas Goodison writes in Matthew Boulton: Ormolu: "with the possible exception of silverware, the ormolu trade is the most interesting part of the business at the Soho Manufactory.... He [Boulton] wanted to make money by applying advanced business techniques to the production of works of art and, incidentally, to rise in the world by exploiting a fashionable market."

The first edition of this book was published in 1974. The present Neatly expanded treatment of the subject is divided into two parts. The first comprises an enlightening consideration of Birmingham as a manufacturing center in the eighteenth century and an examination of the Soho factory and its evolution into an industrial celebrity that attracted visitors from all over Europe and even America. Turning to Boulton and Fothergill's ormolu, there are chapters about its design, manufacture, and marketing. The second part of the book is a detailed alphabetical survey of the objects made of, or incorporating, ormolu produced by Boulton--from "candlesticks" to "vases." As Goodison states, these entries require some repetition of information already given.

Boulton began to work in his father's buckle and small metal-wares business in Birmingham at the age of fourteen and soon asserted a talent for finding the practical application of every new invention. He was also bold to the point of recklessness, throwing himself into the manufacture of "japanned goods, clocks, silver and plate, ormolu, mechanical paintings, lamps, copying machines, coins and metals." Although many of these ventures were financial failures, Boulton never looked back. He applied his interest in science, particularly chemistry, to his professional work, developing formulas for "waxes, ink, varnish, enamels, solders, japan and imitation tortoiseshell," as well as recipes for gilding and coloring.

A description of the Soho factory by a visitor in 1770 begins like a fairy tale: "About a mile and half beyond Birmingham upon the side of a wild heath, stands Soho," and then the writer proceeds to describe the activities in the thirty-nine rooms she visited. The description is incomplete, cut short by the factory's lunch hour. Unfortunately, the intensive expansion of the manufactory between 1765 and 1767 left the partnership far from profitable until it was dissolved with the death of Fothergill ...