Period: Regency
Maker: Josiah Spode
The rich decoration on this Spode cup and saucer is broadly speaking of ‘Imari’ style but also is a delightful concoction. The hand-painting shows verve as well as painstaking attention to detail. We like in particular, in the saucer well, on the bottom and outside of the cup, the stylised Chinese- or Japanese-style tree, with its bright emerald leaves growing from a cobalt- blue and gilt-edged trunk and branches. Beside the tree are two kissing birds. The pale blue and salmon-pink ground on which they stand adds to the mood of exotic fantasy. So too does the outer border, although the gilt decoration is Regency-standard acanthus. In the middle border are gilt-and-cobalt palmettes and gilt laurel fronds. The peculiar rows of gilt ‘pipes’ derive from representations of traditional Chinese roof tiles that one finds on some Chinese blue-and-white export ware.
The cup is of the ‘London’ shape that Spode introduced around 1813. The bases are painted with ‘Spode’ and with ‘2695,’ the number of the pattern which dates from 1817.
Condition The decoration is in excellent order, with just a few tiny spots of gilt rubbing on the saucer and base of the cup handle. Unfortunately, the cup has a 2cm-long crack, on the left side of the handle, that extends down from the top rim (see photograph). The central section of the base of the saucer has a less visible hairline (see photograph). Close inspection reveals a 1-cm long section of the hairline on the top surface, near the heads of the two birds.
Saucer Diameter: 14.2 cm
Cup Height: 6.6 cm; Diameter: 9 cm; Width across handle: 10.3 cm
Net weight: 172 g
Medium: Bone china (porcelain)
Origin: Stoke-on-Trent, England
See Spode and Copeland in Makers & Artists for background on the factory
