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| Cream or sugar tureen, cover & stand, pattern 1926 c1813 |
It's no secret I love flower patterns on Spode, particularly
botanical illustrations in the early 1800s. But to be fair, Spode decoration embraced all subjects. The company employed highly skilled designers, artists and painters who covered all requirements.
Read on for more or scroll down for lots of images...
In the early 1800s a
dessert service was a 'top-of-the-range' product from Spode aimed at well-to-do customers. The services comprised dozens, sometimes hundreds of pieces. Each item would be decorated with one, or more, different subjects within a theme. This theme could be
flower groups,
botanical subjects,
birds, shells or landscapes. Whatever the subject of the design such a service would create an impact, a statement on status and a great conversation piece.
Featured here is pattern 1926 of about 1813. It is bone china,
'Flower Embossed' shape and every landscape or view is handpainted in a rustic style following the fashion of the pastoral style popular at the time. The views are named on the reverse in beautiful handpainted script.
At the top is a cream or sugar tureen shown complete with its cover and stand. They were usually supplied in pairs for a dessert service. The one illustrated here has 5 different views, so two would have had 10 different handpainted landscapes. Quite a feat painting in stages in colours which needed to be fired at different temperatures and were not true till after firing. A
muffle kiln was used for firing colours and gold.
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| 'View near Norton, Staffordshire' |
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| 'View in Cheshire' |
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| Stand, 'Cottage near York' |
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| Cover, 'View near Stone [Staffordshire]' (ruin) |
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| Cover, 'View near Wales' (bridge) |
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| Gilding detail to lid handle |
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| Gilding & painted detail to tureen handle |
The scenes include quaint rural cottages, bridges, rivers and castles. It is likely the artists used prints as their source for this little tour around England and Wales. You will notice there are some views in Staffordshire - the county in which the Spode manufactory was situated.
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| Dessert plate, 'View at Whitmore, Staffordshire' |
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| Dessert plate, 'Cottages near Harrowgate [sic]' Yorkshire |
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| Dessert plate, 'Brecknock Castle' |
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| Dessert serving dish, 'View near Hodnet, Staffordshire' |
The shell shaped dessert dish above would probably be one of 4 in the service. And, yes you've guessed it, each painted with a different landscape. Note the lovely gilding to the handle.
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| Sugar box, pattern 382 c1803 |
Another landscape design can be seen in this sugar box above. It was part of a tea service. Again it is bone china but this time it is painted in monochrome and finished with elegant gilding. The shape is known as '
New Oval' shape. 4 different scenes were used for this piece but they are not named. All pieces of the tea service, like the dessert services, would have featured different landscapes.
There is no Spode name included in the backstamp but the shape could be no other manufacturers and the pattern number can always be checked in the
Spode archive.
So, this blogpost could go on forever as I haven't even touched on the hundreds of
transfer printed patterns and
bat printed patterns... the latter imitating the monochrome handpainted patterns as above in pattern 382.
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| Saucer, bone china, bat printed and gilded, pattern 558 c1804 |
To finish I really felt I should feature the pattern with the name '
Landscape'. This was the pattern name for a
transfer printed Chinoiserie design. Produced in several versions this one is recorded as pattern 2857 of about 1820. It is on
Stone China body. It is printed and handcoloured. The pattern was first introduced in the early 1800s as a plain print. It was aimed at those who loved Chinese porcelain and the Chinoiserie style.
