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| Transferware keeping company with Art Deco pottery, both English and American. The platters from the left are: Fisherman With Nets, Robert Hamilton (1811-1826); Named Views Series, Don Pottery (1801-1839), and Scene After Claude Lorraine, Leeds Pottery, Hartley Greens & Co (1781-1827) |
Growing up in 1950s New Zealand my maternal grandmother had 9 Wedgwood and Wade transferware dinner plates, on her dining room dresser. Because she was born with only one arm, it was my job, aged 10, to dust her precious plates when we visited her. I soon came to love them and was allowed to dry them after special meals, Easter, Christmas and so on. At 17 I bought my first transferware teapot from a Salvation Army shop for $5.00, 'snail ware', (by Wade). Twenty years later a friend admired it so much I had to give it to her, thrilled she was starting her own collection. Moving to London I bought my first Wedgwood meat platter at Alexandra Palace, and another from Portobello Road, where we lived for a while. By my mid twenties I was obsessed but limited myself to English blue and white transferware meat platters and only early Spode, Riley and Wedgwood. I also forbade myself to buy in auctions or online. Somehow I need to be in the room with the piece, to feel it in my hand, to let it win a place in my heart. I also rotate my favorites, bringing them out for a year or so while other pieces 'rest' in the attic, until it is their time to come out to be enjoyed again. Now our daughters are
interested in transferware, so I have a good excuse to go treasure hunting for them, which is such a joy.
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| Favorite platter, Don Pottery (1801-1839) well and tree platter/Notice the cherubs in the border. |
My grandmother had blue & white in her dining room as well. I grew up looking at those plates. Many years later in my early 20's I found a small group of blue and white at an auction. liked that they had animals on them and left a low absentee bid. I won the pieces and that began a thirty plus year obsession. It all started with those four pieces from the Enoch Wood sporting series.
ReplyDeleteI would love to have you write a guest blog. If you are willing, include some photos of your fabulous Sporting Series collection!
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