LEEDS CREAM WARE CANDLESTICKS AND KETTLE AND STAND.
With fine pierced work.
(In the collection of Mr. Richard Wilson.)
The other centre-piece illustrated is 30 inches in height, and is constructed in the form of hanging baskets separate and removable. These baskets, which are of exquisite pierced work, are in three tiers supported from the central column. The top consists of a vase resting upon four winged figures. The piece is surmounted by a classical draped figure of Flora with a cornucopia.
Such pieces as these hold the blue riband of Leeds cream ware, and collectors who wish to find specimens only approximating to them in grace and beauty have to search as far afield as Russia and Sweden before they can hope to gratify their desire.
Another class typical of Leeds cream ware in its highest moods is the large class consisting of handsome cruets, baskets, and a great variety of candlesticks. The pierced work in these articles is of very fine character, and the design is happily lightened by this style of decoration. In regard to imitations of this cream ware, as has already been mentioned, they are heavier, are thickly coated with white glaze, whereas old Leeds pieces are extremely dainty and light in weight, and when the glaze is seen in the crevices where it may have run it is of a peculiar green, due to the use of arsenic.
We illustrate two groups of Leeds cream ware, exhibiting the perfection of its pierced work. The chestnut basket in the upper group is partly derived from Wedgwood's model. There is an indication in the use of the sphinx in the pair of candlesticks of one of Wedgwood's models in basalt. But the treatment here is more graceful, and the character imparted by Leeds to its cream ware is peculiarly its own.
Leeds cream ware undecorated plates have a great variety of patterns in the pierced borders, and are always attractive to collectors. Some of the Leeds plates, with blue painted feathered edge, had either a crest or printed design in middle. In regard to colour, there are fine under-glaze blue plates in which there is as strong a leaning to Oriental pagoda designs as at Bow and Worcester. We illustrate a fine plate of this nature ([p. 303]), similar in design to plates impressed Astbury of Staffordshire. Under-glaze blue-printing (black printing over-glaze was done, but not to the same extent as in Staffordshire) was introduced about 1790. The willow pattern, among others, was a favourite design, and most of these printed blue plates are marked.
It may be of interest to the collector to know that there are marks on the old blue-printed Leeds ware which tell their own story. These marks were made by the "cockspurs" placed between each plate to keep them separate in the kiln. There were three of these little tripods of earthenware placed between each plate. They made, as they had only one point at their apex, only three "spur" marks on the front of the plates in the border, and nine "spurs" at the back, in groups of three.