Pattern 3950 Spode earthenware Dinner Plate decorated with a centre & border design using print P807 'Marble' or more commonly known as 'Cracked Ice & Prunus', this particular pattern incorporating brown, blue, orangey red, pinky red & yellow enamel colours was introduced c1826. The cracked ice & prunus design had been copied by Spode from 18th century Chinese Export porcelain.
The first version of this print was brought out by Spode c1821 in a simple blue & white design; it had been developed by the company, in sheet form, to decorate large awkward ceramic shapes such as jugs & bowls. The cracked ice design transferred very well in these situations & helped to hide the patching in which on any other designs would have been obvious.
You can see a colour photograph of one of these patterned plates (8 inch Dessert) on page 33 of Steven Smith's 'Spode & Copeland over Two Hundred Years of Fine China & Porcelain', although the actual colour appears to be very misleading in his book which just goes to show how lighting & background colour makes so much of a difference. No doubt it would be different again in Georgian candle light.
This Spode earthenware Dinner Plate in pattern 3950 does not have a foot rim but it is very well documented. It has an impressed "SPODE' & a potter's number, it has a printed 'SPODE' in the main printing colour of drab brown, it has its pattern number '3950' hand painted in red enamel together with a decorator's mark in red & lastly another worker's mark composed of 3 spots of blue enamel.