China Cabinet, Mahogany, Late 18th Century.
Plate XXXVIII.
Old China.
| Shelf 4. | Derby. |
| ” 3. | Spode. |
| ” 2. | Spode. |
| ” 1. | Chelsea. |
Plate XXXIX.
These remarks caused me to reflect on the difficulty I experienced in learning to distinguish between hard and soft china, as I had no desire to collect any but old English. I read that the surest way was to use a file, but I always feared antique dealers might resent my testing their stock in this effective manner, although it would have been a useful tip for some who have sold me pieces of Chelsea and called them Oriental. I have for some time been fitted with a thumb-nail of experience on which I have to rely. As illustrative of what may be “won by waiting” let me relate the following:
In the year 1912 I was in Harrogate and had a desire to acquire a blue-and-white china sauce-boat, and I found one which the dealer and I agreed must be Lowestoft. The price was high, but he advised me to buy, as I might not find another. Seven years after I was struck with the strange appearance of another blue-and-white sauce-boat which I bought for a nominal sum. I found it bore a faintly impressed mark, and this enabled me to identify it as made at Bow and printed at Battersea. This discovery led to another, which I think worth recording. In 1912 among other pieces I purchased a triangular-shaped tray with fretted sides, and not being able to locate its origin said nothing when I found it had been appropriated for use in the bathroom as a receptacle for soap. When I had labelled the Bow sauce-boat, which was made of a thick body with a yellowish cast, I looked through my collection for anything like it and found a small blue-and-white saucer and the tray which had been desecrated with soap instead of decorated with sweetmeats and consigned to the risks of a bathroom instead of the safety of the display cabinet. Pursuing my investigation I turned out an oblong basket-work pattern dish with quaint fret edge and with every evidence of old age, which had been in my cupboard for nearly ten years, and then realised that it also was early Bow.