XIV
LATE
STAFFORDSHIRE
WARE
CHAPTER XIV
LATE STAFFORDSHIRE WARE
The School of Colour—Josiah Spode the Second (1798–1827)—Davenport (1793–1880)—Thomas Minton—Semi-porcelain—Ironstone China—The Masons—Early nineteenth-century Commemorative Ware—The revival of Stoneware—Messrs. Doulton—The twentieth-century Collector—Table of Marks—Prices.
The latest phases of earthenware are mainly concerned with the school of colourists, the chief of which was Josiah Spode the Second, who controlled the factory on the death of Josiah his father, in 1797, and took William Copeland as partner. It was this Spode who introduced into earthenware decorative patterns of Japanese colouring in which reds and yellows and dark cobalt blue predominate, following the style of the Crown-Derby Japan style. About 1800 Spode commenced the manufacture of porcelain as well as earthenware, and his richly gilded Japan patterns began to rival those of Derby. In regard to the light-blue-printed ware of a fine quality turned out by Spode, an illustration is given in the chapter on Transfer-printed Ware ([p. 331]). It was this second Josiah Spode who standardised the body used in English porcelain, which is to-day practically the same as Spode's formula. It may be said, roughly, to consist of the constituents of true porcelain plus a proportion of bone ash. Enoch Wood, when an apprentice with Palmer, was the first to use bone with earthenware, about 1770.