Superb Rare Large Heavy Antique Handcrafted Late Georgian / Early Victorian (1830s) Early Transfer Ware Blue “Old Willow” Semi Porcelain Charger (19″/49cm Long, 15″/38cm Wide, 2.7kg). If you are a “Blue Old Willow” fan then this is a marvellous piece for you. It’s large and heavy but well worth the investment and it will be packed very well to reach you safely. This item is one of the very earliest commercial transfer ware items ever produced in the UK. Close to 200 years old! It predates any porcelain marking periods in the UK. Beautiful original traditional blue old willow pattern in lovely condition as shown in 12 sets of photographs attached. If you are extremely particular, then I would advise there appears to be a repair area although this might well be a manufacture mark as there are no chips anywhere so please browse all 12 photos very carefully particularly along the edge. Any faults appear to be none malignant. Transfer ware is a style of decorated china created to sell to the emerging middle class of the Industrial Revolution in England. First produced in the late 1700s, the style caught on and has remained popular since the early 1800s. Transferware first started appearing on the market in the late 18th century, and exploded in popularity in the 1820s and 1830s. Although the styles of the transfers changed over the years, it has been made continuously since then. Transfer printing is a method of decorating pottery or other materials using an engraved copper or steel plate from which a monochrome print on paper is taken which is then transferred by pressing onto the ceramic piece. Pottery decorated using the technique is known as transferware or transfer ware. The bulk of production was from the dominant Staffordshire pottery industry. America was a major market for English transfer-printed wares, whose imagery was adapted to the American market; several makers made this almost exclusively. The Willow pattern is a distinctive and elaborate chinoiserie pattern used on ceramic kitchen/housewares. It became popular at the end of the 18th century in England when, in its standard form, it was developed by English ceramic artists combining and adapting motifs inspired by fashionable hand-painted blue-and-white wares imported from China. Its creation occurred at a time when mass-production of decorative tableware, at Stoke-on-Trent and elsewhere, was already making use of engraved and printed glaze transfers, rather than hand-painting, for the application of ornament to standardized vessels (transfer ware). The exact moment of the pattern’s invention is not certain. During the 1780s various engravers including Thomas Lucas and Thomas Minton were producing chinoiserie landscape scenes based on Chinese ceramic originals. The Old Willow story is based on the Japanese fairy tale “The Green Willow” and other ancient fairy tales originating in China about the constellations that tell the story of two lovers separated and envied by gods for their love. The lovers can only meet once a year when the stars align. There is an English story about the plates that may or may not have links to China; it was first published as “The Story of the Common Willow Pattern Plate” in the magazine The Family Friend in 1849.
