Spode New Stone China Imari Dinner Service, Pattern 3504, Eighty-Four Pieces Circa 1822–1825

Details

Description

Spode New Stone China Imari Dinner Service, Pattern 3504, Eighty-Four Pieces
Circa 1822–1825

The Spode New Stone dinner service of … Read more Spode New Stone China Imari Dinner Service, Pattern 3504, Eighty-Four Pieces
Circa 1822–1825

The Spode New Stone dinner service of eighty-four pieces is decorated in pattern 3504, a Japan pattern in the Imari palette of underglaze cobalt blue, a paler blue wash, iron-red and gilding. At the center of each piece a large gilded bloom lies on a broad dark blue leaf veined in gold, above a stand of bamboo and two pale blue ribbed fruits, with iron-red flowers and buds on slender arching stems, a trailing vine, and a butterfly and a second insect in flight above. The border is a continuous band of scrolling dark blue foliage set with large iron-red blooms, pale blue star-shaped flowers with spiral centers, lotus heads and dark blue rosettes among scattered iron-red leaves, the whole heightened in gold.

The plates and soup plates have a shaped rim, notched at intervals. The large platter is rectangular with canted corners, the pattern spread across the well on a larger scale. The salad bowl is square with indented corners and is decorated inside and out. The four vegetable tureens are of cushioned square form with a waved rim, the bodies left white on the outside, and the domed covers carry the pattern beneath a loop handle richly gilded, with a white band at the center and a gilt network on the supports.

The pattern was built up over an outline printed in underglaze blue, the dark and pale blues painted in before glazing and the iron-red and gilding added by hand afterward. The sequence can be read on a small number of the side plates, where the center shows the underglaze blue alone, the iron-red and gilding there reduced to faint traces.

A service of this size will lay a table for a large dinner party with plates in reserve. The platter and a group of the plates also display well on a dresser or sideboard, or hung together on a wall.

Composition:
Twenty-seven dinner plates
Twenty-four soup plates
Twenty-three side plates
Four vegetable tureens and covers
One large platter
One salad bowl
With the covers counted separately, the service numbers eighty-four pieces.

Dimensions:
Dinner plates, diameter: 9¾ inches (24.8 cm)
Soup plates, diameter: 9½ inches (24.1 cm)
Side plates, diameter: 8 inches (20.3 cm)
Platter, length: 19½ inches (49.5 cm)
Salad bowl, width: 9½ inches (24.1 cm)

Marks: Impressed SPODES NEW STONE, with painted pattern number 3504.

Provenance: Earle D. Vandekar of Knightsbridge

References:
Leonard Whiter, Spode: A History of the Family, Factory and Wares from 1733 to 1833 (London: Barrie & Jenkins, 1970).
Robert Copeland, Spode’s Willow Pattern and Other Designs after the Chinese (London: Studio Vista, 1980; third edition 1999).
Vega Wilkinson, Spode–Copeland–Spode: The Works and Its People 1770–1970 (Woodbridge: Antique Collectors’ Club, 2002), p. 282, for the dating of pattern numbers 3000 to 3500.
Spode Exhibition Online, “Stone China.”

Historical Context:
Josiah Spode II put stone china into production at Stoke-on-Trent about 1813, a dense body under a faintly gray-blue glaze that cost less than porcelain and stood up to the wear of a large dinner service. In 1816 the firm advertised stone china dinner sets at twenty to seventy guineas, and Queen Charlotte bought a service at the Portugal Street showroom in London in 1817. About 1822 the recipe was revised to give a whiter ware, marked SPODES NEW STONE, which stayed in production after the business passed to Copeland & Garrett in 1833. Pattern 3504 belongs to the first years of that body, the factory’s pattern numbers 3000 to 3500 being dated to about 1821.

The Japan patterns in dark blue, iron-red and gold derive from the porcelain of Arita, shipped through the port of Imari and collected in Europe from the late seventeenth century. By the Regency the leading English factories all offered them, and Spode, with its command of underglaze printing, was among the most prolific, fitting the style to stone china services made for daily use on a large table.

(Ref: NY7148-iapr) See less