Pattern 494 Spode bone china Bute shape Tea Cup produced by Josiah Spode II c1803. All decoration was hand-painted & gilded and this example although rather worn is quite rare. The Spode Museum Trust had not seen an example of this pattern previously.
This design incorporates many different coloured enamels & suggests Italian influence to me. Italian Arabesque & Grotesque fresco decoration had been around for hundreds of years and examples of it could be seen in many European countries during the 18th century, which is the era when it was considered essential for the sons of very wealthy British landowners to travel to Europe and immerse themselves in history, art & culture. The Grand Tour as it was known, brought many European influences into UK fashion.
However the Napoleonic Wars of 1803-1815 changed the direction of influence for Britain which would become much more interested in the mystical & magical Far East.
Josiah Spode II commenced commercial Bone China porcelain production at his Stoke-on-Trent factory circa 1799 and possibly a series of Spode Pattern Books which recorded all their designs may have been started at this point.
By c1805 when Spode's pottery business expanded & with Henry Daniel's business now decorating Spode's wares it was essential that several copies of the Pattern Books were required for each branch of the various businesses. The London Salesrooms, Henry Daniel & his decorators, & Josiah Spode's pottery business all needed this information in order to work together efficiently. What may have been carried out on a more informal basis by Josiah Spode II & his son, William, regarding the storage of pattern designs now had to be much more organised.
Probably either Josiah Spode II or Henry Daniel pulled together as much information as they could & all subsequent patterns were generally well recorded at their supervision but there is a distinct lack of information regarding the Spode patterns which were produced in the first two or three years of bone china production c1799-1802. As I mentioned previously, of the first 300 Spode patterns, 243 are either missing or incomplete in the early Spode Pattern Books.
Spode bone china porcelain Old Oval & Bute shape wares are some of the earliest known & positively identified Spode pieces; this cannot be said of most previously produced Spode wares. These Pattern Books are still held by the Spode Museum Trust and are a fantastic historical record & design resource.
During the c1800-1827 Josiah Spode II period approximately 150 different porcelain designs were introduced fairly consistently every year (a few less in the early years) & all running in numerical sequence. That equates to a new pattern every 2.4 days, so it is no wonder that some designs have never been seen apart from in the pages of the Spode Pattern Books, they may have only produced one Tea/Coffee Service in a particular design.
Conversely during the Copeland period they tended to repeat add infinitum their previously 'popular' designs even up to the point of factory closure in the 21st century! Surely there is a lesson to learn here?
Knowing this information, it is also very easy to work out an approximate age for a Spode piece if a pattern number is known together with reference to its shape & taking any markings to its base into consideration. If you divide the pattern number by 150 and then add that figure to 1800 it gives you a date which is roughly correct. Obviously some patterns were popular & reproduced for many years but others would have come & gone as one off pieces of historical art work.
This looks like a flaming torch straight out of Greek or Roman history.
Unmarked to its base, nothing except the kinked handle & its distinctive gilding pattern down that handle to identify its manufacturer.
Another pattern 494 Spode bone china bute shape Tea Cup has just turned up, together with its matching Saucer (April 2019) with Peter McGill at Cotswold Antiques which you can see here: https://cotswold-antiques.com/product/rare-spode-cup-and-saucer-scrolls-and-flaming-torch-1803/
So now I can see the full design on the saucer, & how lovely it is too. The gilding is in much better condition and there are two little gilt arrows at 3 & 9 o'clock which were not revealed on the cup.
I quickly purchased it and Peter informed me that this Spode Tea Cup & Saucer had been in the personal collection of the late Dr Minnie Holdaway who had died January 2010 & was a noted authority on early English ceramics and particularly early blue & white printed earthenware. She had produced a reference guide to 'Hollins Blue & White Printed Earthenware' in 2001 published by Morley College Ceramic Circle.
I have since purchased a copy of this book which has clarified a mystery I have been puzzling over for a while. I own an early blue & white printed jug which has a blue printed daisy on its base and it turns out to have been made by the Hollins family.
Peter sent me a bit of information which the Wedgwood Society of New York had used to introduce Dr Minnie Holdaway prior to her lecture in April 1996:
'Our speaker of the evening will be Dr. Minnie Holdaway. Dr. Holdaway is a Marine Biologist by profession and a Fellow of the Linnean Society and The Zoological Society.
She is Chairman of The Morley College Ceramic Circle, Secretary of the Wedgwood Society of London, Committee Member of The Spode Society, and member of the Northern Ceramic Society, The Friends of Blue, The Derby International Porcelain Society and the English Ceramic Circle.
Her main ceramic interests are the early blue & white earthenwares, both printed and painted, from 1780-1820. She has made the analysis of the West Pans porcelain shards of Littler from the recent excavations of the site of the pottery in Scotland. Dr Holdaway is also interested in all aspects of shapes of early porcelains and earthenwares as to their use and function.
Dr Holdaway's lecture will be 'A study of West Pans Porcelains from recent excavations on the site'. From the recent excavations on the West Pans site, a completely new appreciation of the porcelain production by William Littler at West Pans, with respect to shapes and decoration'.
What historic pieces of Spode bone china porcelain produced c1803 these are.
You can see them now in all their beauty - if your family lived in Stoke-on-Trent in 1803 perhaps your 7, 8, 9 times Great Aunt or Uncle hand-painted this cup & saucer?
There is a speck of kiln dust & cobalt to the saucer & some tiny speckling inside the tea cup but generally this pair are in great condition for their age.
This cup & saucer has been someone's pride & joy for many generations & it's now my turn.
Neither the cup nor the saucer is marked to its base in any way.