During the 18th century, a continuous stream of porcelain dinner services arrived from China while others were manufactured in Europe. They originally copied shapes that had been made in contemporary European pewter or silver.

Chinese Export Porcelain

At first, Chinese porcelain was unrivalled as it was both fashionable and cheap. Throughout the 18th century, services by the ton packed the holds of the East India companies’ ships. Many were meticulously painted to order with the armorials of aristocratic British families in `famille-rose’ enamels, but sometimes amusing mistakes occurred — as when a family motto ‘Unite’ appeared on hundreds of pieces as ‘Untie’. A service such as this, or with unusual associations, will fetch far more than ordinary services. Other designs included delicately painted Chinese flowers, birds and family scenes, and an exotic pattern of overlapping coloured leaves known as the `Tobacco Leaf’ design.

Cheaper and more utilitarian services‘ abounded, painted with Chinese landscapes and river scenes in underglaze blue. These plates originally cost as little as 2d (less than p) each but now change hands for £20-£40 apiece. Although such wares virtually never carry a mark, they can be recognised by the hardness of the porcelain, the unglazed edge of the footrim, and the blue-grey appearance and pitting—small black indentations like pinpricks — of the glaze. A l00-piece service will make £4000-£7000, although the equivalent in famille-rose enamels will cost three to five times as much.

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French and German Services

The factories of Meissen in Germany and Sevres in France were the leading European manufacturers of porcelain tablewares and dinner services, and were widely patronised by royalty and the nobility. From the 1730s, Meissen created services finely painted with birds, landscapes, hunting scenes, flowers and figures, and with moulded flower, scroll or basketwork borders. Coloured borders became more fashionable from the 176os, remaining so throughout the 19th century. Meissen’s crossed swords mark is nearly always to be found on the base, although this was much copied. Whole services from the 18th century are rare, and single plates are well worth collecting, especially if in good condition. A modest deutsche Blumen (`German flowers‘) design sells for around £150, while a desirable Kakiemon or Swan Service plate can reach up to £3000-£5000.

The French Sèvres factory also made large, magnificently painted services, but in soft paste rather than the hard-paste porcelain used by Meissen. The 18th-century Sèvres porcelain has a creamy, soft look, and pieces of this date give an impressi0n of lightness and delicacy. Entwined monograms formed of flower garlands are more common than coats of arms, and the colours tend to be pinks, greens, blues and turquoise instead of the stronger reds, blues and yellows of Meissen. Rims are often decorated with rich but graceful gilding, the surface tooled or engraved with flowers and leaves. Pieces range from £300 to several thousands for those from known services and are often marked with a date letter (starting with A in 1753) and a painter’s mark. But many copies exist. Sevres later introduced services in the Empire style, made popular in France by Napoleon around 1800; the style influenced the porcelain factories of Berlin, Vienna and St Petersburg. It is distinguished by its ‘Imperial’ colours, such as dark blue and dark red, with deep bands of burnished gilding and superb paintings of battle scenes, great buildings and copies of contemporary paintings. Such plates cost £2000-£5000 today. While these and a few lesser manufacturers were making fine porcelain, numerous services in tin-glazed earthenware were being produced in rural France and Germany (where it is known as faience) and Italy (maiolica) throughout the 18th and 19th centuries. These were generally painted with simple sprays of flowers and landscapes. Much used, and often much chipped, such plates are attractive and inexpensive at £50-£500 each.

British Tableware

British factories were hard put to match the continental makers’ versatility. The secret of how to make hard-paste porcelain was not discovered in England until 1768, and the soft, unstable paste developed at Chelsea, Bow, Derby and Longton Hall in the 1740s and 50s was better suited to small, precious pieces. Chelsea produced a series of plates decorated with botanical flowers, copied from engravings of plants in the Chelsea Physic Garden. Now known as

`Hans Sloane plates‘ — after the garden’s patron — these highly desirable items change hands for £1 000-£3000 apiece today.

Few large-scale dinner services were made in Britain at that time because of the instability, cost and vulnerability to heat of English porcelain. Not until the end of the 18th and the early loth centuries were porcelain factories such as Worcester and Derby regularly making large services.

The technological advances of the Industrial Revolution had a big impact on British potteries, speeding up production and bringing down the price of many wares to levels affordable by the new middle classes. One of the most notable inventions was that of transfer-printing, first used on any scale on porcelain at Worcester during the 1760s and 70s. During the first quarter of the 20th century it became the standard method of decoration for cheaper wares.

Continuing the creamware and pearlware tradition, quantities of fine earthenware dinner services were printed in underglaze blue with romantic ruins and landscapes by Spode and other potters. Their large tureens and meat dishes, especially if complete with drainers, are much sought after by collectors today and fetch £300-£2000, depending on the decoration. Such patterns as Spode’s `Caramanian’ and ‘Italian’ are particularly popular, as are Indian sporting scenes and American views. Large dishes can fetch up to £1000, while a rare plate with an American view might reach £1500.

Stone china, such as the ironstone china patented by Charles James Mason in 1813, was stronger than ordinary earthenware. Mason produced impressive dinner services with large tureens on separate stands, decorated with fantastic, oriental-style patterns. The outlines 0f the designs were printed but these were then filled in by hand, a technique also employed by many other Staffordshire potters. Single Mason ironstone plates fetch from £60, soup tureens around £1 000, and a typical famille-rose or Japanese-style service of 100 pieces, £5000-£10,000.

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