The Beauty is in the Cards

 

QUESTION: One of my passions is to visit historic houses. In many of them from the 19th century, I often see beautiful coverlets on the beds and sofas. House docents have said that women produced these coverlets on a special type of loom. I know they were done on a special kind of loom, but I forget what it was called. Can you tell me more about this special loom?

ANSWER: The unique designs of those coverlets were possible by the invention of the “Jacquard” loom. But coverlets weren’t the only types of weaving produced on this loom. By the 1850s, factories began using larger versions of the Jacquard to produce not only coverlets but two-sided carpets. Before the Jacquard loom, complex, figural designs were more difficult to produce alone on the same loom. 

Joseph-Marie Jacquard, a French weaver and merchant, patented his invention in 1804, he revolutionized how patterned cloth could be woven. His machine made it possible for complex and detailed patterns to be manufactured by unskilled workers in a fraction of the time it took a master weaver and his assistant working manually. 

A Jacquard loom wasn’t a particular type of loom but a control mechanism that’s added to a variety of looms. 

The spread of Jacquard's invention caused the cost of fashionable, highly sought-after patterned cloth to plummet. It could now be mass produced, becoming affordable to a wide market of consumers, not only the wealthiest in society.

To weave fabric on a loom, a weaver passed a thread, called the weft, over and under a set of threads, called the warp. The weaving of threads at right angles to each other  formed the cloth. The particular order in which the weft passes over and under the warp threads determined the pattern. 

Before the Jacquard system, a weaver's assistant, known as a draw boy, had to sit on top of a loom and manually raise and lower its warp threads to create patterned cloth. But this was a slow and laborious process.

The key to the success of Jacquard's invention was its use of interchangeable cards into which small holes had been punched, which held instructions for weaving a specific pattern and took over the time-consuming job of the draw boy. 

When fed into the Jacquard mechanism, fitted to the top of the loom, the cards controlled which warp threads should be raised to allow the weft thread to pass under them. With these punch cards, Jacquard looms could quickly reproduce any pattern a designer could create, and reproduce over and over.

The designer first painted a pattern onto squared paper. Then a card maker translates the pattern row by row onto the punch cards. For each square on the paper that wasn’t painted in, the card maker punches a hole in the card. For each painted square, he didn’t.

The cards, each with their own combination of punched holes corresponding to the part of the pattern they represent, were then laced together, ready to be fed one by one through the Jacquard mechanism fitted to the top of the loom. 

When the mechanism pushed a card towards a matrix of pins in the Jacquard mechanism, the pins passed  through the punched holes, activating hooks to raise their warp threads. Where there were no holes the pins press against the card, stopping the corresponding hooks from raising their threads. 

A shuttle then travels across the loom, carrying the weft thread under the warp threads that have been raised and over those that have not. This repeating process causes the loom to produce the patterned cloth that the punch cards have instructed it to create.

The Jacquard mechanism is a device fitted to a loom that simplifies the process of manufacturing textiles with such complex patterns as brocade, damask, and matelassé. The resulting ensemble of the loom and Jacquard machine is then called a Jacquard loom.

Unlike regular looms which are faster and less expensive to operate, looms with a Jacquard mechanism are slower and costlier to operate.

Threading a Jacquard mechanism was so labor-intensive that weavers threaded many looms only once. They then tied subsequent warps into the existing warp with the help of a knotting robot which tied each new thread  individually. Even for a small loom with only a few thousand warp ends, the process of re-threading could take days.

Factories had to choose the looms and Jacquard mechanisms to suit the requirements for their product. They used larger capacity machines or multiple machines which allowed greater control over bigger designs woven over the width of the loom.

The Jacquard attachment first appeared in America in the early 1820s, probably by one of the many German, English and French hand weavers who had immigrated from their native countries in Europe. These immigrant weavers tended to settle in areas with populations of their own ethnic group and near sources of good quality wool. Many brought some type of Jacquard attachment or at least the experience to use one. Some even developed their own devices based on Jacquard's idea and patented them in the U.S.

Jacquard weavers derived the patterns and motifs they used from well-known folk traditions of Western Europe. The designs of most Illinois coverlets can be traced back to Ohio and Pennsylvania coverlets. The center field patterns were either a large, repeated symmetrical motif on two-piece ones or a centered medallion on single-width coverlets. Floral motifs appeared most frequently, in the Four Lilies and Sun-burst, Four Roses, Octagonal Four Roses, Four Leaves and Four Acorns, and Four Bellflowers patterns. Star and Sunburst designs were also common.

Families in the 19th century often used Jacquard coverlets when taking long journeys in a horse-drawn carriage or stage coaches. In America, the practice of making coverlets using Jacquard looms began to fade during the fourth quarter of the 19th century. The import of cheaper materials into the U.S. became a difficult hurdle for weavers to overcome.

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Artful China

 

QUESTION: A friend of mine recently gave me a colorful vase that has two handles and a design of some sort of fruit on the front. The mark on the bottom says “Laughlin Art China” along with the image of an eagle. Can you tell me what company made this and when? 

ANSWER: Your vase is one of hundreds of pieces produced by the Laughlin China Company in the first decade of the 20th century. While the company made some of the pieces, such as soup tureens and platters, it made most of its pieces for display only.

At the turn of the 20th century, American potteries, formerly limited to the production of dinnerware and washstand toilet sets, took a cue from the vogue for American art pottery and began developing decorative "specialty ware" or art china.

Characterized by unusual decals surrounded by a background of solid color applied with an air brush or atomizer, these wares mimicked the standard glaze and hand-painted ware of such art potteries as Rookwood, Roseville and Weller. At first, manufacturers used a brown background but soon changed that to bright red, magenta, green, blue-green, pink and sometimes combinations of several colors. The first American pottery to popularize the style seems to have been the Warwick Pottery of Wheeling, West Virginia. 

Many potteries in the Ohio Valley quickly copied the art china concept. None, however, elaborated up on the idea with more verve and success than Homer Laughlin China of East Liverpool, Ohio, which began production if its art china in 1900. 

But neither Homer nor Shakespeare Laughlin, the founders of Homer Laughlin China Co., had anything to do with the development of Laughlin Art China. The brothers did develop a whiteware pottery on a subscription basis in East Liverpool in 1873, but Shakespeare dropped out in 1877. While Homer Laughlin expanded the company, beginning the production of semi-vitreous porcelain in the 1890s and incorporating the company in 1896, he retired two years later and moved to California.

During these early years, there was one notable and highly successful effort by Laughlin China to produce artistic china-ware. Around 1886, the company succeeded. Marked with the words "Laughlin China" in a horseshoe, workers frequently decorated it  using the French pate-sur-pate technique, with cameo-like white designs on a blue ground. But such ware is rare, as Laughlin only made it for three years.

Under new management, notably that of William E. Wells, the Laughlin pottery continued to expand, completing a second plant in East Liverpool's East End in 1900, soon followed by a third plant. In 1903,. it traded plants with the National China Co. and then enjoyed a combined capacity of 35 kilns.

Shapes that are known to have been used for Laughlin specialties include American Sweetheart, King Charles, Genesee, Hudson and The Angelus. A number of these shapes, notably Kwaker, continued in production as late as the 1940s, 

Beginning in 1903, Laughlin China marked its art china specialties with a gold stamp featuring an eagle trying its wings, over a script "Laughlin." The firm sold the first pieces that same year, but they didn’t appear in company sales literature until 1905. Actual production seems to have been limited to five or six years.

Laughlin produced more than 130 different shapes and sizes of its art china with a currant decal, the most common form of decoration. 

But the White Pets design, the best known, featured a series of dogs, cats and birds, the most common being a pair of pointers, usually shown amid a clump of cattails. The use of a decal showing a pair of white cockatoos may have been a response to Warwick China's striking use of white birds on a white ground.

Another popular Laughlin Art China pattern was Dreamland, bearing a variety of Kate Greenaway-like children's scenes, usually involving a goat, with a blended yellow, green and brown back-ground. Like White Pets, this line often lacked the Laughlin Art China eagle backstamp and simply bore the line name. Unlike White Pets, Dreamland was decorated not with a simple decal but by "pouncing," a process in which the design was enhanced by the addition of small particles of carbon pigment, particularly effective in the cartoon-like Dreamland and Holland decorations. Other cartoon-like decorative lines utilized a variety of frog decals, most likely inspired by Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows.

Other companies occasionally decorated Homer Laughlin blanks using different decals and decorating techniques. Perhaps most notable was the little-known McKean Pottery of Minerva, Ohio, which specialized in a faux wood grain decorative background, a line which they called Angora. 

With Laughlin art china, condition is very important, particularly in collecting art china decorated with the air-brushed background, since this type of decoration wears easily. Because Laughlin intended some of its art china to be used, the delicate nature of the decoration was a problem and may be part of the reason for its decline in popularity. However, some pieces are so rare that even substantial amounts of wear don’t rule out significant prices.

To read more articles on antiques, please visit the Antiques Articles section of my Web site.  And to stay up to the minute on antiques and collectibles, please join the over 30,000 readers by following my free online magazine, #TheAntiquesAlmanac. Learn more about "folk art" in the 2023 Winter Edition, online now. And to read daily posts about unique objects from the past and their histories, like the #Antiques and More Collection on Facebook.

It's All in the Pattern

 

QUESTION: I recently purchased a summer quilt with a sunburst pattern. It really brightens up my day to see the sun spread out on my bed. How did women come up with patterns like this? The patterns I’ve seen on quilts seem to be endless.

ANSWER: Quilts originated as a practical need but eventually they also became personal works of art. They served as window and door coverings. Hanging quilts on the dirt walls of a sod house made them seem more homelike. Quilts could serve as privacy walls, creating sleeping areas in a sod house or one room cabin. Quilts folded and laid on a board placed between two chairs became a sofa.

Patterned quilts have been around for a long time. While some appeared in Colonial times, the peak time for pattern quilts was the second half of the 19th century. Most quilts took hundreds of hours of work. Although some individuals did make the older ones, the most intricate ones were the result of a group of women sewing together in what became known as a “quilting bee.”

During the years between the American Revolution and the beginning of the westward migration, bedcovers blossomed with cotton cutouts salvaged from leftover bits of expensive European chintz. Women carefully snipped around the bird and floral motifs of the imported chintzes and appliquéd them on fields of plain domestic cloth to make the most of the patterned fabric available to them. Known as patchwork quilts, these served a practical purpose—to keep people warm in bed at night.

The pioneers spent up to a year preparing for their trip West. Besides drying and preserving foods and purchasing coffee and beans and barrels of sugar and flour, they packed dishes, clothing, utensils, needles and thread. And they made quilts. The emigration guides suggested that each family should bring enough bedding so that each man, woman and child would have two to three blankets or quilts. They packed some of their quilts in trunks and kept others for daily use.

But it was during the years of the westward journey, from 1840 to 1870, that women stitched the majority of patchwork quilts. As families moved west, fabric became scarce, so women creatively used what they had. While their Colonial forebearers used bits of leftover fabric, pioneer women also used pieces of old clothing and household linens. They stitched these scraps together in designated patterns with some pretty folksy names—the Hole in the Barn Door, Rocky Mountain Puzzle, Log Cabin, Galaxy of Stars, and hundreds of others that reflected the joys and sorrows of pioneer women’s lives. Only rarely did quilters use new pieces of cloth.

Another type of quilt popular at the time was the crazy quilt, a seemingly wild pattern made more coherent by a series of straight seams. Because of a lack of space and quilting supplies, individual pioneer women often assembled lap-sized quilts suitable for throwing over the legs when riding in a wagon or carriage in cold weather. 

The crazy quilt is the oldest quilt pattern. Early quilters used any scrap or remnant available, regardless of its color, design, or fabric type. They fitted and stitched together pieces of worn out clothing, women's calico dresses, men's pants and shirts, household linens, and other oddly shaped fabric scraps.

Crazy quilts, which Victorian women also used to decorate their parlors featured rich colors and textures and displayed fine embroidery skills. Victorian quilters filled their quilts with bits and pieces of their personal past; a piece of father's vest, a husband's tie, lace from a wedding veil, or ribbons commemorating political events. The result was a riot of color with a story behind each scrap.

The quilts of the late 1800s illustrate the extravagance of the Victorian age. In fact, the quilts that most typify those years aren’t really quilts at all, but thin parlor throws meant to thrill the eye—not warm the body. At home on the tabletops, sofa arms, and piano backs of overstuffed parlors, these throws had neither quilting nor batting. Yet, in their own splashy way, they were as much masterworks of American stitchery as their pioneer predecessors.

Pieced from the best silks, satins, and velvets—materials newly available to the growing middle class—the patchwork throws of this era are rich mosaics of color and texture, emphasizing proficiency in embroidery and the mastering of different types of stitches. Women's magazines of the day printed detailed embroidery instructions for anyone to follow.

Quilt patterns varied widely. While the patchwork quilt was usually more of an overall design, quilters created specific patterns that have been passed down to today. Four of them—the None Patch, the Pinwheel, the Double Wedding Ring, and the Eight Point Star, and all their variations–were particularly popular. 

The Nine Patch is one of the simplest and quickest quilts to sew, and because it was a good way to use up every small scrap of fabric available, it was used often. On the prairie, sewing was an essential skill. Young girls learned to sew blocks before they learned to read. At an early age, often as young as 3 or 4, girls were taught to piece simple blocks such as the Nine Patch. Many were very skilled at piecing a block by age 5.

The Pinwheel pattern first appeared in pioneer quilting during the 1840s. It developed as a  representation of the water pump windmills found on farms or small towns along the trails westward.  Water was not only necessary for cooking, drinking and bathing, but it was also a power source especially in timber and grain mills. Quilters considered the pinwheel quilt to not only be decorative, it also paid homage to the  windmill that allowed them to survive pioneer life.

During the early 20th century, women's tastes shifted from dark colors to a rainbow of pastel colors—mint greens, lemon yellows, and watermelon pinks. The Double Wedding Ring was a pattern that lent itself well to pastel fabrics. A feature of many Double Wedding Ring quilts was its scalloped edge created by the circles that made up the quilt.

The Double Wedding Ring pattern dates back to the 15th century. It was reminiscent of the “Gimmal ring,” a popular engagement ring in which the betrothed couple each wore one ring during their engagement, and then the rings were interlocked during the wedding ceremony and worn by the wife.

The quilt pattern can be found as early as the late 19th Century. It had long  long been a symbol of love and romance with its interlocking rings symbolizing marriage. The quilt was traditionally made by Mothers and grandmothers made these quilts for their children and gave them as gifts on their wedding day or anniversaries.

Stars were probably the most common pattern used on quilts. Homesteaders traveling West used the stars for guidance, plus they considered stars as religious symbols of their faith in God.

There were hundreds of star patterns. Some quilts had just one large radiating star, often called the Star of Bethlehem or Blazing Star, while in others, quilters used dozens of smaller stars. The simplest and most popular star pattern was the eight Point Star.

A star pattern wasn’t an easy design to cut or sew. Quilters had to be precise, as any inaccuracy in cutting or piecing became worse as the quilter added pieces. If poorly pieced, the quilt wouldn’t lie flat when finished. An intricate star pattern was one way for a quilter to show her needlework skills.

To read more articles on antiques, please visit the Antiques Articles section of my Web site.  And to stay up to the minute on antiques and collectibles, please join the over 30,000 readers by following my free online magazine, #TheAntiquesAlmanac. Learn more about the "The World of Art Nouveau" in the 2022 Spring Edition, online now. And to read daily posts about unique objects from the past and their histories, like the #Antiques and More Collection on Facebook.

More Than Roses, Apples, and Ivy

 

QUESTION:  My mother was living by herself and, as she was getting older, decided to move into a retirement community. So she needed to downsize. She gave me quite a few pieces of mid 20th-century, solid colored dinnerware that looked a lot like Fiesta Ware. But the pieces had a stamp on the back that said “Franciscan Ware.” I’ve always liked these dishes and would love to find pieces to make up a complete set. What can you tell me about Franciscan Ware? Is it possible to find additional pieces?

ANSWER: The dishes your mother gave you were the first pattern of Franciscan dinnerware, called El Patio, designed by Mary K. Grant in 1934. First introduced by Gladding, McBean and Company, it was available in six solid colors, accompanied by mixing bowls and casserole dishes.

For the next 50 years, Gladding, McBean and Company produced nearly 150 patterns of colorful dinnerware, kitchenware, and decorative pieces of earthenware in Glendale, California. The most popular patterns in the Franciscan line—known as Apple, Desert Rose, and Ivy— featured embossed, hand-painted designs created in the 1940s.

The name 'Franciscan^ was a tribute to the Franciscan Friars who had established missions in California in the 17th century. In 1936, the company changed the name of the line from Franciscan Pottery to Franciscan Ware to convey a sense of quality..

Glassing, McBean produced its Franciscan ware in three distinct types of body material. The first was "malinite,^ a cream-colored durable earthenware. Next high quality vitrified china wares, known as Masterpiece China in 1940 and Franciscan China in 1942.  And lastly, the firm also made Franciscan Ware in a whitestone ware, a white earthenware first used by Gladding, McBean in 1959.

Just as Franciscan body materials came in three categories, so did the patterns used to decorate them. The three were solid-color patterns, embossed, hand-painted patterns, and decided patterns, some of which came in either a glossy or a matt glaze Potters based the earlier patterns on Mexican and early American designs.

Solid-color patterns generally come in a single color, although the company also produced two-tone ones. The very first Franciscan dinnerware, El Patio, made from 1934 to 1953, came in 20 different solid colors and over 103 shapes. Cups and bowl handles had a distinctive, pretzel-like shape. A short-lived variation on this pattern, El Patio Nuevo, was manufactured in a two-tone pattern from 1935 to 1936. The interiors  and exteriors of all pieces came in different solid colors.

Another well known solid-color pattern produced around 1936 was Coronado, finished  in satin, matt, and glossy glazes. Also called Swirl for the swirling, spiraling shape molded into the pottery.

Gladding McBean's designer Morris Sanders created the Metropolitan pattern, originally produced in Ivory, Ivory and Coral, Ivory and Grey, and Ivory and Turquoise satin finish colors. for a New York industrial design exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In color combinations, potters used Ivory for lids and handles and as a liner. They also made Plum and Chocolate Brown patterns, each with Ivory liners. All of the vessel forms in Metropolitan were either square or rectangular.

The embossed, hand-painted patterns had decorative shapes embossed into the pieces. Decorators then hand-painted these raised shapes prior to glazing. Among these were the most beautiful and sought-after Franciscan patterns, including Apple, Desert Rose, and Ivy. The producers of both the Donna Reed and I Love Lucy T.V. shows used Apple and Desert Rose on their sets.

Introduced on January 1, 1940, Apple was Gladding, McBean’s first embossed, hand-painted pattern. It was popular for its bright red fruit, sturdy brown branches. By early 1942, Desert Rose, a pattern with pink wild roses, light brown thorny branches and green leaves, also became popular. Gladding, McBean then applied the Desert Rose pattern to previously existing vessel shapes. The finials on the lids, shaped like rose buds, were distinctive.

The company introduced Ivy in 1948, rounding out the trio of most popular Franciscan patterns. Ivy was originally offered with 27 shapes. Gladding, McBean added additional vessel shapes, including comports, a covered butter dish, a 12-ounce mug, a relish dish with three sections, a side salad, sherbet dishes and a TV tray, in the 1950s.

Besides its three main patterns, the firm produced decaled patterns—underglazed transfer printed patterns produced from the late 1930s right on through to the 1980s. The most popular of these patterns was the Starburst pattern. Introduced in 1954, Starburst featured large and small blue and yellow dots through which black lines radiated. The Eclipse vessel shape upon which Starburst appears was also distinctive.

Because of the volume of pieces produced by Gladding, McBean and Company, it’s possible to find many of them online at eBay and other sellers of antiques and collectibles. 

To read more articles on antiques, please visit the Antiques Articles section of my Web site.  And to stay up to the minute on antiques and collectibles, please join the over 30,000 readers by following my free online magazine, #TheAntiquesAlmanac. Learn more about the "Pottery Through the Ages" in the 2022 Winter Edition, online now. And to read daily posts about unique objects from the past and their histories, like the #Antiques and More Collection on Facebook.

It's All About the Patterns

 

QUESTION: When I was a little girl, I used to sleep over at my grandmother’s house. While there, I used to stand in front of her china cabinet looking at all the beautiful china. Each piece had some sort of scene, usually a landscape with people. Most of the dishes were blue but some were pink and one or two were lavender. After my grandmother passed, I got her china collection. I just love it but don’t know much as these beautiful pieces. The name Spode is either stamped or impressed on the bottom of most of the pieces. Can you tell me who made them and where they got the ideas for the scenes on them?

ANSWER: What your grandmother collected and you now have is Spode china. All those with scenes and borders are what’s known as transferware, a technique for transferring prints to pottery.

During the early years of the 18th century, Spode achieved success because of  his mastery of transfer printing.  An Irish engraver named Brooks invented the process. It involved first, engraving a copper plate, then inking it and applying to it to thin tissue paper. The impression on the paper could then be transferred to wares of any shape.

Spode produced a variety of pottery wares, often imitating those of Wedgwood, including creamwares, basalts, stonewares, redwares, Jasperwares, and of course blue-printed pearlwares and early experimental porcelains.

In 1784, Spode began printing under the final glaze in blue on earthenware. He copied the early patterns from Chinese porcelain imported wares. By that time, London customers who had originally purchased Chinese porcelain dishes needed replacements. The engraver Thomas Lucas brought with him to Spode’s pottery the knowledge of designs from his previous employer, Thomas Turner at Caughley. 

Most of the early blue transfer-printed patterns were Chinese in style.  As Spode's production advanced and its customers' tastes evolved, the variety of patterns grew. Interest in Chinoiserie patterns later gave way to patterns that depicted rural scenes, exotic places, literary themes, as well as floral and botanical examples.

The earliest pattern produced by Spode around1790, was “Willow,” now known as “Blue Willow,” printed examples of the Willow pattern, commissioned by Josiah Spode and made around 1790, and its copperplate, engraved for Spode by Thomas Minton. 

In June 1805, there appeared the first of 20 monthly issues of a publication called Oriental Held Sports, Wild Spurts of the East, published by Edward Orme of Bond Street, London.  Each issue included a printed story and two large aquatint prints engraved from drawings by Samuel Howitt, a distinguished animal painter. Spode adapted the prints to his dinnerware depicting various hunting scenes with animals and birds. Some views show mounted hunters carrying spears with native bearers on foot. The ’Indian Sporting’ series alone had 21 different hunting scenes.

Another popular series formed a travelogue of views in the Eastern Mediterranean. Spode based these on engravings in Mayer's Views in Asia Minor, Mainly in Caramania, published in 1803. "The Castle of Boudron;" The City of Corinth" and “Antique Fragments at Lissimo” were all part of this series. 

From around 1800, most of the patterns painted by Spode's artists were recorded in Pattern books.  These books contained watercolor paintings of tens of thousands of patterns made from about 1800 up to the end of production. Many are beautiful works of art in their own right, but they also acted as a historic document of changing design styles over two centuries. Georgian simplicity, Regency opulence, Victorian Naturalism, sentimentality, Pre-Raphaelite styles, Japanese Revival, Arts and Crafts, Art Deco, and 1950s Modernism.

Spode introduced his more famous pattern, “Blue Italian,” around 1816. It became immediately popular and remained a best seller. Over the years, the company produced it on a wide variety of earthenware shapes. One Spode catalog from the 1920s and 1930s records over 700 different shapes available. 

Unlike many of the other classical scene patterns on Spode wares of the early 19th century, the origin of the view for the Italian pattern isn’t certain. Some experts believe Italian artist G.P. Pannini, well known for his painting style, inspired pictures of ruins and quiet pastoral Italian scenery fpor Spode pieces. The Spode engravers derived many of their pictorial subjects from scenes which had appeared as prints. Publications of prints of scenes associated with the Grand Tour became the inspiration for many patterns. Merigot's Views Of Rome and Its Vicinity, published in 1798, was the source for several Spode patterns, including Tower and Castle, but experts agree that none of these views inspired the Italian pattern.

Furthermore, there is no one location in Italy that seems to correspond to all the features included in the original “Blue Italian” scene. It seems to be a composition made up of several elements. The ruin on the left, although architecturally incorrect, might have been based on the Great Bath at Tivoli, near Rome. The row of houses along the left bank of the river is similar to those of the Latium area near Umbria, north of Rome. The castle in the distance is of a type which occurs only in Northern Italy in the regions of Piedmont and Lombardy.

Could it be that a traveling artist from Northern Europe made sketches of the scenes he encountered as he made his way through Italy? Upon returning home, did he combine his sketches into an attractive scene which, later, Spode used and chose to call the Italian Pattern? Unfortunately, there is no proof of this. The inspiration for the Italian scene may have even come from a print of a painting and then another painting taken from the print by a different artist.

In the early 19th century, most of the pieces Spode produced in the “Blue Italian” pattern were on dinnerware items used by the rich---asparagus servers, huge meat dishes, enormous soup tureens with ladles, cruet sets, foot baths, and more. Wealthy households set their dinner tables with Spode’s Italian. And there were many variations of the pattern. 

“Blue Italian” was an immediate success from its introduction. Though it’s impossible to say what created this strong appeal, it’s perhaps due to the unique combination of a classical scene with a Chinese border which had been directly copied from pieces of Chinese export porcelain, dating from around 1785.

By 1822, Spode had developed other colors, in addition to blue, that could withstand high-temperature firing.  The production of these additional printed colors enabled Spode to expand his line of wares.  While not nearly as popular as Spode's various blues, these new colors included green, brown, manganese purple, Payne's grey, and black.  

Soon afterwards,  in 1824, two-color underglaze printing began.  Spode also employed other methods to add color.  One method was to transfer print outline patterns and then paint in or between the lines of the pattern in other colors. Other methods included enameling with additional colors and gilded decoration over the glaze to further expand the variety of offerings.  Near the end of the early Spode period, the pottery also began producing wares in pink.

Spode introduced about 150 patterns a year.  By 1833 Spode, they numbered nearly 4,000. Most Spode wares bear a pattern number, as well as the name Spode printed, painted, or impressed on the bottom or reverse side.

Some Spode collectors collect just the “Blue Italian” pattern while others specialize in collecting only the oldest pieces dating from 1816 to 1833. Since Spode china continues to be made, newer pieces are often passed off as older ones. It’s important to check the provenance if possible. 

To read more articles on antiques, please visit the Antiques Articles section of my Web site.  And to stay up to the minute on antiques and collectibles, please join the over 30,000 readers by following my free online magazine, #TheAntiquesAlmanac. Learn more about "The Ancients" in the 2021 Spring Edition, online now. And to read daily posts about unique objects from the past and their histories, like the #Antiques and More Collection on Facebook.