The Lucano Pattern

       One of my most treasured finds from that very first trip down the Spode aisle at Tuesday Morning is some lovely plates of the Lucano pattern. Honestly, as I dug through the stacks of Blue Room Collection plates, I saw one with this pattern and immediately put several in my tiny stack of plates. I was so excited to show my family the plates I had found that had “a castle” on them! Since then I have also found a small open vegetable dish and a mug (which came in a matching tin on clearance from Spode.com!)

      

      The pattern itself is based on an aquatint engraving which was originally published in 1798, which features in the foreground the Bridge of Lucano, (Ponte Lucano) a first-century Roman bridge which is a historic site still recognizable today!

Original Aquatint by James Merigo from artisopusgallery.com 

          In his book, Antique Blue and White Spode, Sydney B. Williams gives a good summary of the history and significance of this beautiful place:

          “This bridge, sixteen miles distant from Rome, derives its name from a victory obtained by the Romans over the Lucanians. It was rebuilt by Tiberias Plautius, who possessed a villa adjoining to it. His magnificent family tomb stood in the same neighborhood. This ancient tomb, round in form, and much resembling that of Caecilia Metella, was repaired by the Goths and converted by them into a fortress.

           The bridge has become well known from engravings and also from the beautiful picture by G. Poussin in the Doria Palace. [see here.] It has been crossed by many warriors of the past, heavily-armed against all foes except deadly malaria, which has played a commanding role in the politics of the Eternal City of Rome." (p.116)

For more on the history of Lucano, you can visit its World Monument Foundation page by clicking here.

A Spode by Any Other Name

Spode dishes have undergone several phases of ownership over the years, and consequently, the markings on Spode pieces can be a bit confusing to the beginning collector. Perhaps you can relate to my experience the moment I picked up a dish with what I recognized as a classic Spode pattern, only to confusedly think, “Copeland?... Who’s Copeland?... This is a Spode dish!” If so, this post is for you!

Here it is in a nutshell: 

1776-1833 The earliest pieces may not have any markings at all, or could even be marked just with an x inside a circle. Early Spode often has just the Spode name impressed into the pottery, and could also have the Spode name painted on (with varying styles or fonts). 

1833-1847 Next is the “Garrett & Copeland” era, when the company was bought by joint owners (hence the name). Copeland bought the company outright in 1846, ushering in the next phase of markings.

1847-1966 The markings from this period sometimes feature just the Copeland name, but markings from throughout the whole Garret/Copeland eras often include the Spode name, as on the demitasse cup below, or even the phrase “Late Spode”. 

 1966-Present This era saw the return of the traditional Spode name. Early in this period, markings tend to have just the name printed on in a calligraphy-type font. Newer pieces feature helpful words like “dishwasher safe”, and often a short history of the pattern in the same blue ink as the pattern on the front, specifying the original date of production for that particular pattern. 

For a more specific, in-depth history of Spode and its owners, see the Spode Museum Trust site (link here), and for a good visual timeline of Spode History, check out Spode History here on Blogspot.

The Wind in the Willowware: or, Treasuring the Classics

Detail from the foot of a Spode's Tower soup tureen.

Last summer, I took a Children’s Literature class. (Don’t worry… this really is a post about dishes. -Be patient and we’ll get there!) At first, I expected to read lots of familiar things, but I quickly found that my professor required that we read books that we had not ever read before. She wanted us to befriend our local children’s librarian, dig into our textbook book lists and discover all the books we’d heard of but never actually read. In short, she wanted us to be exposed to the greatest volume of quality children’s literature possible. (And in a very short amount of time!)

That was how I ended up reading The Wind in the Willows… in less than 24 hours… during the intensely busy Neighborhood Bible Time week. 

I had heard it quoted, and had even seen a cartoon version of it sometime during my childhood, and recognized it when I saw a beautiful edition at some store or other. I bought it, shelved the beautiful new blue and goldenrod volume on my shelf, and never got around to reading it –until last summer.

Somehow I had missed the fact that Kenneth Grahame’s story about Mole and Ratty and Badger was a widely-recognized children’s classic. Missing this, I had also missed the fact that many children do not like the story.

Freshly armed with these two facts from my textbooks, I picked up the neglected volume from my overstuffed bookshelves and began reading. Whether it was the fact that I had been reading so many nonfiction textbooks, or that the story had a certain familiarity to begin with, or that I was simply determined to like this classic which others disliked so readily, but I fell in love with the story. The beauty of the writing drew me in and, for the first time in years, I stayed up late reading, reluctant to leave the new world into which my imagination had plunged me.

My Children’s Lit experience taught me something about classics: These high-quality things of the past usually contain more beauty and value than the cheap Disney-princess-golden-book-latest-movie-character fluff that is churned out by society today. 

Actually, I have always had a love for old-fashioned (or just plain old) things. One of the chiefest delights of my childhood was playing “archaeology” in our garden. My siblings and I must have spent hours digging up bits of broken glass and pottery and square nails in the backyard of our Portland home. Ours had been the original farmhouse of the neighborhood (or so we believed), and there were definitely lots of artifacts left behind in the yard. We found quite a few interesting pieces, now somewhere in boxes in my parent’s garage. The best find for me was the pottery. I loved to see the beautiful patterns and always dreamed of finding enough pieces to make just one complete dish.

Perhaps that is why now, more years later than I care to think about, as I am facing the eventuality of needing to outfit a home of my own at some point unpredictable for the present moment, the dishes I am the most drawn to are the “classic” Spode blue and white dishes. (See! It really is a post about dishes!)

 

I started collecting Spode a couple years ago, when I walked into Tuesday Morning on a whim and suddenly found myself face to face with an aisle full of Spode dishes. I had decided on blue and white as the colors I wanted eventually in a home of my own, and in the back of my mind as I gazed longingly at the dishes (after looking at a few price tags and realizing I couldn’t possibly buy the whole aisle full) was the story of how my Gramma Colleen bought her china piece by piece, going to the store every payday until she had collected what she needed. Filled with the hope and excitement and anticipation of the possibility of having a story like that to tell about my own dishes, I bought as many as I could afford that day, and went back every month after I got paid until I had about 8 dinner and salad plates, along with one or two small serving pieces. 

Then came the tragic day when there was no more Spode at Tuesday Morning. —Not even in the clearance section! My collecting slowed down for a while, buying what few pieces I could find at stores like Marshalls, but then, this fall, I did what no collector on a limited salary should do. –I typed Spode into the search bar on Amazon. I was initially looking for bowls (I had plates, remember), but there were so many different dishes and patterns and –Oh, my! There was even a bread box!! 

Of course, I didn’t buy much that evening, but I did buy a book, Antique Blue and White Spode by Sydney B. Williams, which shipped from England and took a very long time to come. (Ok, so it took a reasonable amount of time, considering the distance it had to travel, but it seemed like forever!) It is this book (which I then read cover to cover) to which I will likely refer almost exclusively in the next few posts. In addition to the helpful pages detailing early markings, (more on that later!) styles, patterns, and so on, Williams gives some fascinating background on many of the classic Spode patterns, in many cases telling about and even including pictures of the original prints used to make the engravings for the transferware. To see this book on Amazon, click here.

I will also be including some practical nitty-gritty everyday mundane collector-y things like tips for safely removing those sticky store labels they like to put right over the most interesting bit of the pattern.

So… stay tuned, and enjoy, and don’t forget to treasure those quality classics others overlook!