Saucer of the Week: English Coalport with Strawberry Leaves

Or is it Worcester?  I am not absolutely sure.  To be honest, I really couldn't tell you what the difference is between Coalport and Worcester china, except that both were made in England during the nineteenth century in towns of the same names.  Coalport went out of business in the 1920s and Worcester (more recently known as Royal Worcester) ceased operations in 2009, a victim of mismanagement, too much debt, and an inability to adequately respond to shifting consumer tastes.  Oh well.

This week's featured saucer is decorated with an orange background and gilt banding, and sports a string of pretty gilt-painted strawberry leaves, a classic English decoration.  I believe it was made in the first quarter of the nineteenth century.  It measures 5 5/8 in diameter and is unmarked.  I'm not absolutely positive, but I think we bought it at the tiny, treasure-filled shop of Bardith Ltd., the legendary purveyor of antique ceramics, on Madison Avenue half a dozen years or so ago.  It was not inexpensive.

An early botanical print of wild strawberries
showing leaves similar to the ones on
our saucer

So why do I like this little saucer?  As some of my readers may know, I am drawn to almost anything that has orange in it, which this does, and I find the vigor of the decoration (and what is portrayed) to be quite pleasing.  The decoration is not dissimilar to a Coalport footed boat-shaped grape bowl we own of a similar vintage that Boy bought for a song years ago at Tepper Galleries in New York.

We have placed this saucer on one of the bedside tables in our bedroom at Darlington House, where it serves as a handy base for one's morning cup of coffee and also for one's evening cocktail when dressing for dinner.

Photograph by Boy Fenwick

Illustration of botanical print of strawberry plant courtesy of BrigidsFancy at etsy.com