In December I wrote that if the owner of the plaques below got in touch, it would make my Christmas. Sadly they didn't.

In case you've been wondering who Paul Jones might have been (the painted title of the right plaque above), take a look at this page on Wikipedia.  He was the 'first naval hero of the American Revolutionary War'.  Perhaps unsurprisingly, the British caricatured him as a pirate (see below).

Recently the following pair of plaques came up at auction.  Congratulations to their new owner, I'm green with envy.

The plaques are of an unusually large size (circa 22 x 24 cm).  I've blogged about this plaque form previously, but as yet got no closer to identifying the pottery. Richard Cobden appears on these larger plaques (below left), and also on the smaller rectangular plaques I've attributed to Scott (below centre).  The verses are very distinctively engraved, and (unusually) have the bible reference at the top.  The verses appear on later plaques with the John Carr & Sons impress.  Cobden also appears on later Carr-attributed items (below right).

Take a look at the bowl below, which has the 'Paul Jones' transfer.  The bowl was recently in John Howard's stock (now sold).  On the other side of the bowl is the 'Pensioner's Yarn' transfer, which as far as I know, is peculiar to Scott.

The obvious thought is that Scott made these larger sized plaques (c1850), and that the transfer plates with the religious verses and Richard Cobden later found their way to Carr (c1860). The 'Paul Jones' transfer doesn't appear on Carr items as far as I know.

Richard Cobden fell from public grace in the 1850s for opposing the Crimean War. This might explain why Scott would relinquish the Cobden transfer plate. But why would he allow the verse transfer plate to fall into the hands of a competitor?  What's more, these verses with the biblical reference at the top don't appear on any of the other plaque forms I've attributed to Scott. Perhaps someone at Scott's left Sunderland to work in North Shields, and took a couple of transfer plates with him. It rankles with me that we may never know!

The verses below accompany the Richard Cobden transfer (the left transfer is on the reverse of the jug above). They are, therefore, likely on the same transfer plate.  The blue corners are a feature associated with Scott.  See the May peace and plenty page for more examples.

On reflection, it does seem that the group of plaques with distinctive scrolled borders were produced by Adams' Staffordshire pottery (see my previous post).  I can't claim credit for this discovery. Ian Sharp told me a year ago he thought the train plaque was a 'fake'.  More recently, Steven Moore e-mailed to say the 'Death of Punch' was an Adams' repro.

So why has it taken me so long to accept this?  Ian's opinion (which I've always valued) was almost in a minority of one. When these plaques appeared in reference books and articles (not just Gibson) they were listed as Victorian. (Although, perhaps tellingly, they do not appear in Baker's 'Sunderland Pottery' – the key work of scholarship on the subject.) Similarly, whenever a Crimean plaque of this kind or a train plaque turned up in an auction house or on a reputable dealer's stall, it was always catalogued as 19th century Sunderland lustre (see lots 384 and 402 in Sotherby's Tolson Collection catalogue, for instance). The vetters of the major antique fairs agreed. The collectors, who were prepared to pay £400 –700 for the train, agreed also. And as discussed at the end of my previous post, the Sunderland Museum accepts the plaques as 'right' and displays them alongside originals. For me the real sticking point was that they looked old – often with cracks, and corners missing.

But here are 5 reasons which contribute to why I now believe they are copies (or fakes if you prefer)...

Look at the idividually painted leaves and farming implements on these plaque details. They are nothing like the slap-dash washes of colour typical of Sunderland potteries like Moore & Scott. N.B. the neat enamel decoration on the right plaque detail above is identical to that on the marked 20th century Adams' cup with the same transfer (see my previous post).
 

Ian Sharp used the word 'greasy' to describe the feel of these plaques. The glaze has an almost synthetic/plastic quality to it.  Ian's description is perfect. But it applies to some plaques more than others, and I've noticed this phenomenon on some Scott plaques too.
 

The two details above are from alleged Adams plaques. Some of these colours – the electric blue and scarlet on the right in particular – never appear on plaques from Sunderland.
  

Ian Holmes noted that according to the way he'd numbered his collection, nearly all of the plaques of this form fell into the 'miscellaneous' category. If they were really made in the 1850s, why no religious verses?  Why no ships? The pick and mix choice of subjects seems consistent with someone putting together a range of attractive designs with retro appeal.
  

Why does the train transfer never appear on pink-lustre jugs or bowls?  Or the Crimean transfer? (N.B. the Dixon version does.) The Death of Punch appears on the reverse side of the pink-lustre loving cup below, but the cup is unlike anything produced in the 19th century.

Why do many of the plaques look so old? In my November 24th post I noted that the pottery body of this group of plaques was prone to cracking and stress. Also, the corners of these plaques turn slightly upwards, which makes them particularly vulnerable to damage. I've seen at least four Crimean plaques with damaged or missing corners. And yet it is rare to find one of these plaques (particularly those with pink borders) with rubbed or faded lustre.

After believing for so long they were 19th century, I'm loath to put a new date on them. The first half of the 20th century is the best I can suggest. They are old enough to have been worth repairing pre-1950 (see my December 22nd post). They're also old enough to have been accepted as originals by W D John & Warren Baker when they wrote their book 'Old English Lustre Pottery' (1951).

Adams added printed marks to much of its 20th century output. The mark on the plaque below was used over a long time frame: at their Greenfield site 1914–1955, and at their Greengates site 1914–1970. The marked plaque doesn't show the same signs of stress or age, so I assume it was made later.

Is it possible that some of the unmarked plaques were made in Sunderland, and some in Staffordshire?  That doesn't seem likely given that all the unmarked plaques show similar signs of stress, they mostly have the same feel, unusual colouring, and neatly painted enamels. And I've recorded nearly all of them with both pink borders (left below) and copper lustre borders (right below).  All of this suggests they came from the same pottery.

There are, however, some slight variations to the crispness of the moulding (see below). The Crimean plaque (third below) has the best defined features. The hunting plaque (first below) the least well defined, suggesting it came later from the mould.
 

Will I be putting the Adams-attributed plaques in my collection in a box in the attic? Absolutely not. Unlike the awful 'Flying Cloud Boston' and 'Agamemnon' repros, these items have some intrinsic value, and will continue to be desirable to collectors. What's more, within the next twenty years or so they will be real antiques, if they aren't already!

Ian Holmes points out that the times at which the English and the French got on well enough for a pottery to commission a Crimea plaque are few and far between.  He suggests 1904, at the time of the Entente Cordiale, or perhaps 1908 for the Franco-British exhibition. This might fit as a date for the copper-lustre-bordered Crimean plaque, which looks to be the oldest, and is the most common, suggesting a longer span of production.  

Ian says that by 1920, items celebrating war had little commercial appeal. Interestingly, around this time, British toy manufacturers switched from making soldiers to farming figures. Perhaps this was a good time for a pottery to produce retro farming verse plaques?

But this is an edited selection of Ian's comments.  Like me, he's struggling to get his head around this new attribution.

Ever since finding the plaque below with a 20th century Adams' printed mark, a question mark has hovered over the many unmarked plaques that have this unusual scrolled border.  In my November 24th post, the doubt seemed to recede a little, when I noted a striking difference between the appearance of the crackle/stress marks on the unmarked plaques compared with the almost crackle-free reproduction.

But today I found some more links between the unmarked plaques, and 20th century Adams' items with printed marks.  Compare the transfers on the cup and plaque below.  Click to enlarge and to move between the photos.

You have to bear in mind the curvature of the cup, but I have little doubt that these transfers came from the same transfer plate. Here's the printed mark on the cup...

And here's another unmarked plaque, shown next to the reverse side of the cup.

And take a look at the items below. They both show the 'Death of Punch' – a scene from Dr Syntax.  The left plaque is unmarked.  The silver lustre platter has an Adams' printed mark (below right).  See this link for more photos.

So are all of the plaques with this kind of border 20th century Adams' reproductions?  We know that the train also appears on items with 20th century printed marks (but in the case of the three items below, not Adams).  See p143 of the 5th edition of Griselda Lewis' 'A Collector's History of English Pottery' for two mugs with this transfer and the printed mark 'RAILWAY W. ADAMS & CO ENGLAND'. 

Perhaps Adams acquired transfer plates from a Sunderland pottery after the plaques were made. Even if not, Adams was in operation right the way through the 19th century, so I suppose there's still a chance that unmarked Adams' plaques might be Victorian.

As you can see, I'm still struggling to get my head around this one.  Not least because many of these plaques look old. Here are two in the Sunderland Museum: a Crimean subject on the left, and a train in the centre of the right photo.  I've put in a request for information. Could 20th century Staffordshire really have found its way into the museum collection?

As always, if you can add anything, please let me know.

Nearly two years ago now, I wrote a short blog post about the Maling plaque below, which has a 'Mustard collection' sticker on the back.

I recently contacted the Maling Collectors' Society, and they put me in touch with Maling historian, David Johnson.  He has been enormously helpful sending me copies of two films, 'Maling Memories' and 'Potty About Maling' (you can view the former on the Maling Collector's Society link above). They make fascinating viewing, showing interviews with ex-Maling employees, making and decorating items of pottery from original Maling moulds.

In 'Potty About Maling' (1997) Nona and Jerry Mustard make an appearance talking about their collection. Tantalisingly, as the camera pans around their home, there's a table covered in plaques. One of them is a pink rectangular plaque with the motto 'Forgive and ye shall be forgiven'. It is of a kind I've been longing to attribute to Maling. And it seemed safe to suppose that if it was in the Mustard collection, it had a Maling impressed mark.

David very kindly contacted Nona Mustard on my behalf to see if they still had the plaque.  He got a very nice reply, but, as suspected, the Mustard's sold their plaques some time ago. David suggested that if I contacted Jim Railton Auctioneers who sold the collection, they might be able to provide details. But Ian Holmes came up trumps with a copy of their auction catalogue from 2001 when the plaque was sold.

So why has this modest looking verse plaque got me so excited?  Firstly, the Robert Maling mark confirms an early date for these plaques of between 1830–40. N.B. sometimes this mark is hard to decipher. Take a look at the poor impress below. It is possible that you might have a religious verse plaque with a similar mark, and have failed to identify it.

Secondly, it confirms what I hinted in my December 5th blog post, i.e. that a wash of pink lustre over the central transfer is an attribute of Maling plaques. Other potteries might have used it, but the vast majority of plaques on which it occurs are types associated with Maling.  Look at the two fabulous plaques below which came up a year or so ago at Boldon Auctions. I think that we can now attribute these with some confidence to Robert Maling.

There are many more common verse plaques with green corners, which also have pink lustre over their central transfers (see below).

But lest we get too carried away with the idea that green corners = Maling, remember the similar 'La Polka' plaque (below centre), with the printed mark B & Co. Ian Sharp has identified this mark as  J Burn & Co from the Stepney Bank Pottery, Ouseburn, 1852–1860. However, neither of the plaques below have lustre over the transfer.

Another fly in the ointment is that two of the rarer verses above appear on plaques I've attributed to the Sheriff Hill Pottery (see below).  This is a problem, because we'd expect these to have been produced around the same period (1830–40).  If I had better photos of their counterpart plaques above, I could perhaps tell whether they came from the same transfer plates.

But I'm not disheartened by any of this. In fact, I couldn't be happier (writing this post has saved me from an afternoon of ironing).  And as someone famous once said, 'The truth is rarely pure, and never simple'.

On November 24, I wrote a post about a group of plaques with unusual borders and an irregular crackle. Since finding a plaque from a similar mould with a 20th century Adams printed mark, a question mark has hung over this group.  But how do you prove the age of an unmarked item?

We know that the train plaque in this series must predate 1951, because it appears in W D John & Warren Baker's book 'Old English Lustre Pottery' (The Ceramic Book Company, 1951). But can we get further back?

Ian Holmes has a plaque from this group with a Crimean subject we'd expect to have been produced in the late 1850s.

Interestingly, from the point of view of dating it, there is an old stapled repair.  Even better, it has the restorer's sticker on the reverse.

Ian suggested that if we could establish the date that staples ceased to be used, we could perhaps get back even further. I entered the details on the sticker into Google, and could hardly believe my luck when I found this link.

http://eberhardts.com/

Not only that...  Founded in 1888, Eberhardts say they are the oldest antique shop and restorer in the US.  That takes us back well beyond the 20th century Adams printed mark.  Eberhardts have moved since the time of the repair.  I e-mailed them and asked whether they could confirm the date of the move, and when staples stopped being used for repairs.

They couldn't have been more helpful, and even contacted Mr Eberhardt to answer my questions.  Here's what they said.

That is definitely an Eberhardt's repair job.  Harry Eberhardt was the only China repairer/restorer to use double silver staples for repairs. The idea is that the double silver staple is stronger with less thickness or protrusion than a single staple. You'll also notice that the staples are somewhat recessed into the porcelain, also for less protrusion.

Harry Eberhardt moved from 213 S. 11th Street about 50 years ago.

Today I got a further response...

Mr Eberhardt says the staples went out of use in about 1950 and we moved from 11th street about 1956. The double staples were in use from 1888 or before. The Eberhardts sticker was in use for many years.

 
So not the news I was hoping for.  I do, however, feel I've learnt a bit in the process.  Thanks to Jonathan Novak at Eberhardts for all his help.

Though this doesn't doesn't take us back beyond the 1930s, when the Adams Pottery repros were likely produced, it does add to the weight of circumstantial evidence.  Would someone go to the trouble of repairing an object that was barely 20 years old?

I'll leave you with a final Eberhardt's link to browse...

http://antiquesshowcases.com/

In 1864 Galloway & Atkinson succeeded Isaac Bell, Galloway & Atkinson in running the Albion Pottery (previously owned by Robert and C T Maling as the Ouseburn Bridge Pottery). The 'G&A' partnership only ran for 1 year, but made some very distinctive plaques with wide borders (below left), more often than not with an impressed mark (below right).  The mark is circular, and has the words 'ALBION POTTERY' around the initials 'G&A'.

There were two similar plaques in the collection of 'Thou gods' that recently came up at auction. However, only the left plaque (240 mm x 215 mm) is marked. The right plaque is of a smaller size (219 mm x 198 mm), and lacks the leaf decoration to each corner of the mould.

The photos below show the relative sizes of the plaques. N.B. I've shown the small plaque against a typical Albion 'May Peace and Plenty' plaque from my own collection (238 mm x 213 mm). 

The small unmarked plaque (219 mm x 198 mm) is in fact similar in size to a plaque form I've attributed to Scott (see it relative to the 'Victoria and Albert Yacht' below).  Note that the Scott plaque (215 mm x 195 mm) also has no leaf decoration in the corner.

My first thought was that perhaps the 'Thou God' transfer plate had passed to Scott c1865, when Galloway & Atkinson disbanded.  However, there is enough variation between the dimensions of the two plaques above for them to have come from different moulds.  Note also that the lustre effect on the 'Thou God' is in fact much more similar to the Albion 'May Peace and Plenty' above.

My guess is that the 'Thou God' was made at the Albion Pottery, but perhaps after 1864, which would explain why it doesn't carry the G&A impress. I have still no reason to doubt the Scott attribution for the 'Victoria and Albert Yacht'. One last note of interest is that in taking the 'May Peace and Plenty' plaque off the wall again to measure it, I noticed that the Albion impress on the reverse doesn't have the G&A initials in the centre.  So perhaps it too was made after, or slightly before, 1864.

I can't imagine I will squeeze in another blog post this week, so Merry Christmas, and thanks again to everyone who has contributed to MSTP in 2011.

Please take a look at my previous (short) blog post before reading this. Huge thanks to Norman Lowe for sending the photo of a Moore & Co bowl below.  It has the well known 'Sporting' transfers, which you can see examples of on plaques on the Landscapes page.  But more excitingly, perhaps, it also has an image of the Good Samaritan.

It looks incongruous amongst the hunting transfers, and without its title must have confused a few people.  Has one of the hunters fallen off his horse? 

So how does it compare with the plaque? Click on the details below to enlarge, and to move between them.

The most obvious difference is that one is the mirror image of the other.  Notice also that the image is too big for my small circular plaque, so that the tree trunk that should appear on the right is missing. 

Is the c1830's plaque Moore & Co?  It doesn't seem likely. The image appears so rarely we have to assume it didn't take off commercially.  So there seems little reason for one pottery to want two transfer plates.  Who made the plaque?  Your guess is as good as mine.

In my original post I wrote... 'the image would appear in reverse upon the copper transfer plate.  My guess is that the engraver had an early plaque or similar in front of him and painstakingly copied the image onto the copper plate. He couldn't copy the title in the same way, because when printed it would appear in reverse.'  

Thinking about it, this is wrong! The image appeared exactly the way on the copper transfer plate as it would the object. It was first printed onto tissue paper, on which it appeared in reverse. Then the image on the tissue paper was transferred onto the object, the right way around again.

So why would we end up with a reverse image on pottery?  Perhaps all the engraver had to work from was an imprint on paper direct from the copper plate.

Norman has sent some further photos of the bowl.  He writes: I’m never sure about dates on lustre pieces without primary evidence. I imagine that bowls like this were produced over a long period and while it might be 1850s it could just as easily be earlier, including the 1830s. The transfers are clear and seem to be from dies that have been relatively un-worn. And Baker indicates 1830-1850 for this transfer.

I guess that means that it is just possible that bowl pre-dates the plaque.

The last month or so has thrown up so many interesting finds, that I've been struggling to keep up. This is the only early plaque I can think of with a representation of a story from the bible – the parable of the good Samaritan. The initials ER are under the glaze, so perhaps not just the initials of the person it was commissioned for, as I first thought.

The plaque is relatively small (170mm) and the mould doesn't match any of my other plaques.  It is so unusual that it will have to rest for the foreseeable future on the Unidentified page.  I love it.

My friend Myrna has talked about the existence of a pottery God, who occasionally smiles on collectors, allowing them to track down a yearned for and elusive object – perhaps to complete a series or to pair.  Well, I'm now a believer.  In my October 15th blog post, I put out a request for an image of a rare hand-painted ship plaque I'd bid on several years ago. I hoped the collector who bought it might get in touch. They didn't (they very seldom do). But the plaque came up for auction a couple of weeks later in the US, and it now sits on my shelves. So here's that better image I wanted.

The ship is more proficiently painted than I'd imagined. Clearly the design is incomplete, as it has rubbed away over the years. A few finely painted curves in the upper half give scant clues to what is missing.  The plaque has an indistinct 'Dixon Co' impress (see below).

I will shortly add the image to the rare ships page, so it can sit together with its pair.

Huge thanks to Ian Sharp for digging out many images from his archive of plaques he's sold over the years (you can visit his website by clicking here). I will sort through them properly when I get a spare moment, but here are three plaques I've wanted images of for a while...

What a great way to start the weekend!