Chinese musicians ca. 1755 Chelsea Porcelain Manufactory The large group now known as the Chinese Musicians represents one of the towering achievements of the modeler Joseph Willems (Flemish, 1715/16-1766) at Chelsea and indeed of the factory itself. Composed of four figures, one of which represents a child, the group is the largest and most complex of any produced at Chelsea or at any other eighteenth-century porcelain factory in England. Because of its scale and the number of figures, the group would have entailed a highly laborious process to model and to assemble, and to fire it successfully would have presented additional challenges revealed in the small firing cracks and in the areas in which the enamel decoration appears slightly scorched. One other example of the Chinese Musicians exists,1 and it is likely that very few were produced due not only to the difficulty of fabricating it but also to the high price at which it had to be sold.One Chelsea factory sale catalogue from A