Antique Staffordshire Child's Tea Set, British Anchor Pottery, Apple Blossom Pattern, Circa 1850

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Antique Staffordshire Child's Tea Set, British Anchor Pottery, Apple Pattern, Circa 1850

"Start As You Mean to Go On" — … Read more Antique Staffordshire Child's Tea Set, British Anchor Pottery, Apple Pattern, Circa 1850

"Start As You Mean to Go On" — Antique Staffordshire Child's Tea Set, Apple Pattern, Circa 1850, Found on Nantucket

Recently acquired from a house sale on Nantucket, where by the family's account it had remained since it was made — this complete 21-piece child's tea set carries with it not just the charm of Victorian nursery life, but the rare gift of a single, unbroken home.

Made circa 1850 by British Anchor Pottery in Staffordshire, England, in the "Apple" pattern, the set is decorated with red apple blossom transferware in tones from deep pink to pale blush, with the gentle irregularities — soft alignment, the occasional runny glaze — that mark early transferware as genuinely handmade rather than merely old.

The set includes:

Teapot with lid, 4½"H x 7"L (spout professionally reglued)
Sugar bowl with lid, 4"H
Waste bowl, 2½"H (small original rim chip, underglaze)
Six cups, 2"H (one with a faint hairline)
Six saucers, 4¼" diameter
Six plates, 5" diameter (one with an old chip on the reverse)

Marked with an identified "V" decorator's mark. Overall dimensions 6"W x 6"D x 6"H.

Most nineteenth-century children's tea sets like this one were separated, broken, or dispersed across generations — this one, remarkably, was not. It comes to its next home still whole, with the wear of a set that was genuinely used, and genuinely loved, by the same family for well over a century.

Condition: Good, with honest wear — reglued spout, one rim chip, one hairline, one plate chip, all noted above. See less