Date: circa 1814
Period: Regency
Pattern number: 2/1070
The pattern of this Regency ‘Old English’ creamer or milk jug by John & William Ridgway is unusual for its stylised seashells. The principal decoration is a gilt basket filled with hand-painted summer blooms, inside a butter milk-ground panel. On the opposite side is a gilt and buttermilk nautilus shell. At the back, between the handle joints, is a pale blue and buttermilk conch outlined in gilt. Underneath the lip is a moulded white leaf, with gilt vines and edging. Between the flower panel and the motifs, a dark blue ground is adorned with gilt seaweed. On the inside there are gilt scrolls.
The same creamer is Plate 776 on Page 130 of Michael Berthoud’s A Cabinet of British Creamers. Norfolk Museums also has a coffee cup in the same Ridgway pattern.
Condition: Good. No chips, cracks or repairs. Some rubbing to gilt edges of handle, gilt bands around the rim, gilt seaweed, gilt vine tendrils underneath the lip, and the gilt flower basket.
Origin: Stoke on Trent, England
Width between tips of lip and handle 15.9 cm. Height 9 cm
Weight: 221 g
Medium: Bone china (porcelain)
See Ridgway partnerships at Cauldon Place in Makers & Artists for background on the factory.
