Period: Regency
Maker: Josiah Spode
This highly imaginative Spode pattern is known as the Banana Tree. It is an artistic interpretation of a Chinese or Japanese scholar’s garden.
A stylised banana tree curves round the left side of the dessert dish. It is skilfully painted on both the slanting cavetto and the flat well in the centre. The banana tree appealed to Chinese and Japanese poets for the melancholy sound of raindrops splashing off its large leaves. This was not the same banana tree that supplies the fruit we buy in vast quantities but musa banjoo or the Japanese banana tree (believed to have originated in China’s Sichuan Province). Japan’s most celebrated poet, Basho, is named after a banana tree or basho (芭蕉)* The eight-petal flower in the centre is the water lotus, a Buddhist symbol of purity as it emerges unstained from roots in the muddy waters of attachment and desire.
The palette is the standard ‘English Imari’ trio of cobalt blue, iron red and gold, and some design elements, such as the stylised banana tree and lotus flower, are derived from imported Chinese and Japanese porcelain. However, their inspired application is a tribute to Regency artistry and originality.
SPODE and the 2214 pattern number are painted on the bottom.
We are also listing a Spode ‘Hydra’ jug, a trio of tea and coffee cups with saucer, and a coffee cup and saucer in the same pattern.
Condition Very good/excellent. A few surface scratches and light gilt rubbing to rim edge, lotus roots and the gilt band around the roots.
Diameter: 21 cm
Height: 4 cm
Weight: 368 g
Medium: Bone china (porcelain)
Origin: Stoke-on-Trent, England
*See my blog, Basho and the banana tree; Kan’ei-ji’s bell and revolution
For background on the Spode factory, see Spode and Copeland in Makers & Artists.
