Across the UK we are all now living in a lockdown of one kind or another, again. As the winter weather makes outside experiences more challenging, I am guessing that there is going to be more online content featuring interior images.
And, who doesn’t love some flowers in winter, especially when they are grown in the UK.
Left or right? With or without?
This beautiful bunch of the scented ‘Paper White’ narcissi was a Christmas gift from my sister and they were grown by the folk of ‘Blue Box’ based in the Isles of Scilly. The flowers arrived tightly furled, they slowly unwound and released a gorgeous perfume. They have lasted remarkably well and are only just going over.
Scent, perfume, fragrance is part of our lived experience. Humans in the techie world have done so well digitising the visual and the auditory, but the olfactory . . . iSmell (I kid you not, ask Mr Google) so far, has not been a success.
Survivors from the 18th century. Worcester teapots from 1760-1780. Blue teapots painted with blue underglaze and colourful teapots painted with enamels and gilt. Worcester Porcelains (the First or ‘Dr Wall’ Period). The Twining Teapot Gallery, Norwich Castle Museum.
From the mid-seventeenth century onwards tea-drinking arrived in England and over the next century the English started making teapots and gradually formulated a version of porcelain that could be made into ‘china’ teapots. Originally porcelain production was a Chinese secret, but by the 1740s a form of porcelain was being produced in Britain. Chinese porcelain was very expensive and highly rated as noted by Nicholas Crisp in 1743.
The essential properties of China-ware, besides the Beauty of its Colours, are these: that it is smooth, and as easily cleaned as Glass, and at the same Time bears the hottest Liquors without danger of breaking.
Nicholas Crisp writing in the Public Advertiser in 1743
It was only natural that the innovative potters of England would want to be able to make teapots as good as the much praised China-ware. As a result of fierce, commercial competition to successfully copy these much admired Chinese imports, soft paste porcelain was developed. It was white and glossy and thinly potted to produce teapots similar in appearance to the Chinese imports. However, as soft paste porcelain is fired at relatively low temperatures some of the early teapots shattered when filled with hot water.
Some manufacturers recommended ‘Warming the Pot’. That is slowly warming a teapot to avoid it shattering. It didn’t take many years before soft porcelain was perfected and teapots became reliable receptacles for boiling water, however, ‘Warming the Pot’ persisted. I learnt the ritual from my mother without question, but I have thought, on more than one occasion, why am I doing this as boiling water poured over tea immediately makes the teapot more than warm! Well, now I know – and I won’t be warming the pot in the future! Unless somebody gives me a new plausible reason.
It is strange, but my Grandmother died over 20 years ago and I’ve wrapped and unwrapped her blue and white china at least seven times since then as I’ve moved around. And, until now I’d not properly examined it.
It is from the company of William Adams and the printed mark and registration number (clearly decipherable, 623294) dates from about 1913.
This Pattern was introduced by William Adams in 1780 being a copy of a Chinese & one of the first of its style produced in English pottery.
William Adams pottery mark – 1913 +
This pattern was called ‘Chinese Bird’ and continued to be popular through the 1920s and 1930s. It consists of pictorial lozenge panels featuring either asiatic birds or oriental gentlemen surrounded by a blue and white mosaic style pattern. The origin of this pattern of decoration and its longevity is proudly stamped on the bottom of the base of each piece. A kind of promotional strapline, a little puff and a glimpse of 19th-century marketing as mass production took off.
The Chinese Gentleman
The Adams family of potters had been active working with the kilns of Staffordshire probably since 1650, but by the beginning of the twentieth century ‘William Adams’ was a brand. The original William Adams (1745-1805) had worked for Josiah Wedgwood during the eighteenth century and then successfully launched his own company William Adams, of Greengate, Tunstall, Staffordshire. This business was passed on to his son in 1805, but then sold out of the family to John Meir another Tunstall potter in 1822.
Some surviving William Adams ‘Chinese Bird’ pieces from my Grandmother’s collection.
The name does not end there as there were other cousins and relations, one Edward Adams, and another three William Adams who made Staffordshire ceramics in the Potteries during the 19th century. W. Adams, Adams, Adams & Co, Adams Warranted Staffordshire, W Adams & Sons, W A & S, Wm Adams & Co, ADAMS, W Adams & Co Tunstall were used through the 19th and 20th centuries until the business became part of the Wedgwood Group in 1966.
Blue and white china a popular choice for over 200 years for English collectors.
And, spool forwards to December 2016 and I’ve worked the blue and white look to create a hand painted silk scarf (now sold, but other scarves available).
Agnes Ashe 