XIV.

Mr. Owen’s description of Bristol china is very clear and concise. “The pieces are graceful in form and well moulded, the flowers brilliant in colour and skilfully painted; and the gilding, bright though unburnished, is of that particularly rich and solid character that always distinguished the manufacture. Though it often bears Dresden marks, and is moulded in Dresden shapes, the quality of the paste is so different that it is easily distinguished from the Dresden. The glaze is rich and creamy white, while the Dresden has a cold, glassy surface.”

[Illustration: Crown Derby Covered Dish.]

Crown Derby is seldom picked up by the china hunter—never I believe in country homes in New England. Near New York a few rare pieces have been found. Miss Henrietta D. Lyon, of Staten Island, has part of an exceedingly rich and elegant Crown Derby dinner service painted in delicate colors and gold, one covered dish of which is here shown. The gilding and painting upon these pieces is in the highest style of artistic beauty and dexterity. They bear the mark used at the Derby factory from 1784 to 1796.

The most common piece offered to the china hunter in New England is what is known as the willow-pattern ware. It was made first by Thomas Turner, at Caughley, in 1780. He manufactured both pottery and porcelain. I often have wished that he had never invented that willow-pattern. I have had it thrust in my face for purchase until I could scarcely bear to look at it. I have had visions of dainty Bow, Bristol, and Plymouth china brought before me through vivid but uncertain description, only to come face to face with more printed willow-pattern. I should imagine that a large proportion of all that ever was made was sent to America. And it has been made in vast quantities, too, for it has been certainly the most popular pattern ever printed anywhere on stone-ware or porcelain. Mr. Jewitt says: “Early examples bearing the Caughley mark—the cups without handles and ribbed and finished precisely like the Oriental, are rare.” Of course they are, in England, but not in America; as the prices prove at the Governor Lyon sale. Old willow-pattern plates sold there for one dollar each.

Pieces of willow-pattern ware are often of astounding age and fabulous value. Forty dollars is the favorite price that knowing country owners assert they can get in the city for their willow-pattern platters. I have a favorite formula which I always use in answer to these aspiring traders—my “willow-pattern answer.” I reply, gravely, “Yes, that pattern is priceless.” It does not mean anything and it pleases them, and if you told them that the platter was worth about two or three dollars they would look upon you as a swindler. Modern willow-pattern ware is also offered at fancy valuations. I have never been able to decide whether an old farmer who brought two willow-ware plates about a year old to sell to me, assuring me (though they bore the visible mark and stamp of modern production) that “this old crockery had been in his fam’ly more’n a hundred year”—I have never decided whether that ingenuous bucolic were a deep-dyed swindler or the innocent tool of some crafty sharper. I answered him soberly with my patent “willow-pattern answer”—“That pattern is priceless,” and he went away hugging his antiques with delight. I have seen within a year at a well-known dealer’s in New York, a modern willow-pattern platter upon which was pasted this printed inscription: “This platter belonged to Miles Standish, and was often used by him, and is therefore very rare and of great historical value.” This was an auction label cut from the catalogue of a sale, and the dealer let it remain as a joke for the knowing ones, and possibly as a bait for the unsophisticated.

“The Broseley Blue Dragon” and the “Broseley Blue Canton” pieces and their imitations are frequently found. These patterns were also made at the Caughley or Salopian Works. The “cabbage leaf jugs” came from that manufactory.

I have never been able to understand why the willow-pattern should have been so much more popular than the Blue Dragon. The latter is certainly very handsome and consistent, or rather congruous throughout, while the willow-pattern is neither “fish nor fowl nor good red herring”—it is not English, and it is certainly not wholly Oriental. The color is good, as was all blue at that time.

At a later date than the reign of Lowestoft on “company” dinner tables in New England, the fine “best tea china” of well-to-do people was English porcelain of copper-lustre and pink and green decoration. Many of these pretty lustre sets are still preserved and can be bought of country owners. A terrible blow has been dealt, however, to the desire to purchase such wares by the fact that modern reproductions showing equal beauty of color and similar designs have appeared in large numbers within the past two years. Pitchers of pottery, “prankt in faded antique dress” of light brown or pinkish purple lustres are now manufactured. They bear no marks and cannot be distinguished from the old ones—and are just as good, perhaps, for every one but a china hunter. The solid lustre teapots, sugar-boxes, and pitchers—copper-colored, brownish lustre or silver on a pottery ground, have not, so far as I know, been reproduced. On many pieces the lustre is diversified by a pretty design in white, sometimes in relief or by painted flowers. The finest old pitcher of this ware that I have ever seen bore a graceful embossed design which was decorated upon the highest reliefs in pink, green, and gold lustre. This was positively affirmed to be part of the Mayflower cargo. Most of these lustre pieces are unmarked, hence it is impossible to assign them to any factory. A few of them, the clearest and purest in paste, and most delicate in decoration are New Hall, for I have plates so marked. The stamp is a cursive New Hall not enclosed in a ring. This stamp is not given in English books of stamps and marks. Mr. Jewitt says such pieces are rare in England. They certainly have not been rare in New England. Some of the lustre pieces may be assigned to Newcastle. The Woods also manufactured them, while at Shelton were made pieces with lustre borders and black printed designs signed “Bentley, Weare and Bourne, Engravers and Printers, Shelton, Staffordshire.”

I have never seen a dinner set of lustre ware—only tea-sets, comprising usually a teapot, sugar-box, creamer, bowl, a dozen tea-plates (often of different design and paste), two cake-plates, a dozen cups and saucers, and sometimes a dozen little cup-plates. Salt-cellars, pepper-boxes, and mustard-pots of similar lustre are seen, and sometimes wine-glasses, or rather wine-cups—but never any of the pieces of dinner services. Pitchers appear in various sizes. The china is usually clear and fine in quality, but the design is often confused. A few punch-bowls of copper-lustre on coarse pottery have also been found in New England, but are curious rather than beautiful.

I have never been able to add to my collection, through china hunting, but one piece of Worcester porcelain, the one shown on page 29, nor have I ever seen in a country home a piece of Chelsea, Coalport, Pinxton, or Nantgawr porcelain, and but one set of Spode, which was seized from an English vessel by a Yankee privateersman in the war of 1812, and brought triumphantly into Salem Harbor. Nor, may I add, have I ever seen a piece of pottery or porcelain of Continental manufacture, save Delft. For any porcelain save that made in China and England, American collectors must turn to china dealers.