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| Dessert plates, bone china, pattern 2789 c1819 |
Knowing
my interest in botanical subjects on early 19th century Spode wares, a correspondent kindly told me about two square dessert plates which were up for sale online*.
These bone china plates from Spode were once part of a large dessert service, made for use, not simply for display. In the early 19th century Spode dessert wares were particularly fine; produced in the most expensive, fashionable styles; and sold to the wealthiest of customers.**
Pattern 2789 was first recorded in about 1819. It has a border design of mainly cobalt blue and gold - a combination of 2 of the most expensive materials for decoration - with a touch of red. The centres are handpainted with a pair of botanical subjects. Every piece of the service would have had a different pairing of flowers making for an amazing sight when laid out together with all its matching serving pieces.
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| Backstamp on the convolulus plate - note the form of the figure 8 in the pattern number 2789 |
My original correspondent wondered if the flower subjects were taken from
Curtis's Botanical Magazine which I have studied over the years, matching the magazine illustrations to Spode patterns. When I started doing this research at the end of the 1990s I used the original 18th century
Curtis's Botanical Magazines, which are in fact books, in the
Spode archive.
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| A volume of Curtis's Botanical Magazine 1780s |
It was painstaking work, carefully turning pages, lifting the tissue covering the print to see if a flower matched a Spode piece. Many years on these magazines are now online. Hoorah! I use the fantastic Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) digitisations
here. You can follow BHL on Twitter
@BioDivLibrary.
It is still painstaking work but much quicker and much easier to share. A simple botanical subject on a Spode piece is fairly straightforward to find. You can see this in the example of the daffodil or, as Curtis describes it, '
Narcissus Major or Great Daffodil'. Here the Spode design of about 1808 is a direct copy of the magazine illustration of 1788.
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| Curtis's Botanical Magazine, Vol 2 plate 51, printed and hand coloured 1788 |
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| Spode dessert plate, bone china, pattern 1100 handpainted centre with gilded border c1808 |
It gets more difficult for me to identify the source of the flowers when the Spode designs are more stylised, rather than a true botanical subject, such as in pattern 2789 featured here; and also the fact that 2 unrelated flowers are put together on each piece.
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| Dessert plate, pattern 2789, Tagetes and Bluebell |
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| Curtis's Botanical Magazine Vol 5 plate 150, 1791 |
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| Dessert plate, Tagetes and Bluebell (detail) |
I spent a long time looking at the illustrations in Curtis's Botanical Magazine online to see if I could find matching subjects for these 2 dessert plates but was only partly successful. I looked through the first 12 volumes and found a Tagetes, described by Curtis as '
Tagetes Patula. Spreading Tagetes, or French Marigold', which could be the source of one of the flowers but did not find the bluebell it is paired with.
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| Dessert plate, pattern 2789, Convolvulus and probably Delphinium |
I also found the probable source for the Convolvulus described by Curtis as 'Convolvulus Nil or Azure Convolvulus'. I did not find its pair which I think is a Delphinium.
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| Curtis's Botanical Magazine Vol 6 plate 188, 1792 |
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| Dessert plate Convolvulus and Delphinium (?) (detail) |
I confess I was rather relived there were only 2 plates to research, not a whole service of dozens of pieces...
Teawares were also produced in this pattern again with each piece having a pair of flower subjects. The flowers are as you would expect on the saucers but for the coffee cup and teacup the design is adapted so a flower appears on the outside of the cup - one on each side.
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| L-R: Coffee cup, saucer and teacup, pattern 2789 |
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| Saucer, pattern 2789 |
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*With thanks to
Jayo Emms Antiques England for the images of the 2 dessert plates which inspired the blogpost.
**For more about dessert wares from Spode on this blog please use the Search box/page and enter dessert.
