Here is where we collect fine eighteenth-century china in the traditional way—but with a difference. Instead of ranging over the whole field—and bumping up against the big collectors—we select one small,relatively unconsidered part of it. It will give us specimens of the work of all the famous factories of the era and if we are patient and careful there is no reason why we should not build up a very attractive collection on twenty-five pounds a year—ten shillings a week.

What I am inviting you to consider is old English blue and white “soft-paste” porcelain. First of all, what is it? You must have seen in the shops a great many pieces of tea and table wares decorated in blue. When you examine it closely you find it is not at all like the hard, brilliant porcelains of, say Sevres or Dresden, or even the heavy white bone chinas of Minton or Spode. It is very light, and sometimes quite irregular in its shapes ; the glaze is uneven, seems to lie on the top of the material and sometimes does not cover the footrim. It breaks with a sugary fracture, not a glassy one, and you can make marks on it with a knife. If you find this description not much help, ask a dealer to show you a piece of “soft-paste” : you will at once see the difference between it and other materials.

Antique Collector MagazineAll this “blue and white” ware, made in the eighteenth century at Worcester, Caughley, Bow, Lowestoft and elsewhere, wasn’t “real” porcelain at all—not in the sense that Dresden or Sevres or Chinese is. For when our little English factories started making porcelain in competition with these foreign products we still had not found out the secret of the materials and the methods needed to producereal or “hard-paste” porcelain. So we made up a substitute by using a mixture of broken glass, bone ash, clay and other ingredients.

But as it turned out, this substitute, though not nearly so efficient and hard as the real stuff, had a charm and personality of its own. At least that is the opinion of collectors in England, and in the countries which grew out from us. And that is why we are so fond of all those fragile pieces from the early English factories.

Now alongside all the splendid services with wonderfully painted flowers and birds and butterflies, brilliant coloured “grounds,” and so on, there was a very modest branch of this porcelain intended for the middle-class house. The potters took trouble to see that it was more practical than these more exotic pieces, in that the tea-table wares would stand up to hot water, and so on—for this sort of buyer could not afford to buy new services every few years. Similarly, the cheapest way to decorate it was to paint it or print it in one colour, usually blue, the easiest sort of pigment to manage on the kiln.

There are teapots, jugs, large mugs, cups, saucers, bowls and so on, often slightly irregular in shape, with the glaze seemingly floated on. The decoration may be rather “chinesey” looking, or it may have several elegant eighteenth-century figures, or perhaps some clusters of fruit and flowers.

Not all of it will actually be printed in blue. Quite often you will find pieces in black, or brown, or even other colours. But I have recommended blue, first because it is usually much less costly than the other colours, secondly because you see it more often, and thirdly because only when you see a lot of blue and white together do you realise how much it gains from being together. I know I am having to make this point all the way through this book, but I am afraid it is just true. One or two odd pieces just look like lost sheep: but put a respectable amount together and you have something worth looking at. Only this probably applies more to “blue and white” than anything else.

What is there to collect, and how much will it cost? To start with, there are all those charming little handleless tea bowls and saucers. Our eighteenth-century ancestors used them in the early days of tea-drinking in this country, following the Chinese pattern. The saucers are usually deep, because it was actually good form in those days to pour your tea into the saucer and drink from that. These bowls can often be found for a pound or even less, though they cost much more when they are with a saucer.

The latter are not very easy to find on their own. As I explained in “Odd Cups,” one saucer generally did duty for both coffee and tea-cup or bowl, and not so many were made. So whenever you see one on its own, snap it up : there is a good chance that a cup of the pattern will turn up one day.

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Old Blue and White Porcelain