White china with blue spots

[Emmanuel Dabney]

Does anyone have any idea what white china with blue spots would look like?

Thank you.

[JordanRicketts]

Re: White china with blue spots

Just a calico button, I have a few in my collection. PM me your email and I will send you a pictures...

Jordan Ricketts

[Emmanuel Dabney]

Re: White china with blue spots

Sorry I should have been clearer...

White china DISHES with blue spots.

[Becky Morgan]

Re: White china with blue spots

If they're the kind I have seen (I'm trying to remember whether they're in the Oglebay Museum collection or at the Imperial museum), they look rather like the coat of a pointer, white for the most part with small to medum blue specks throughout the glaze. I've seen some recent stoneware that looked like graniteware. If you're thinking of what I saw, the flecks are perhaps the size of a pencil eraser, more or less round to oval, on a pure, not flecked, white background. When we made ceramics a million years ago in high school, there was a commercial white glaze with chunks of blue in it. During firing, the blue melted into the distinctive spots, which are very slightly raised and often not entirely regular in color. I haven't examined the originals closely enough to tell whether the irregularity is the same in the historic pieces.

[PvtWill]

Re: White china with blue spots

This was a style sometimes seen on ironstone of the 1850's. I cannot remember it being referred to by any particular name other than the pattern that was decorated. Many plain white ironstone patterns had varied patterns and or copper leaf applied for added decoration.

regards,

mark

[Vuhginyuh]

Re: White china with blue spots

Emmanuel, how the spots are applied? Transfer in a symmetrical pattern? Hand applied? Atomized? Sponged?

[Garrett Silliman]

Re: White china with blue spots

Is your question raised from a period description, or from a modern museum catalog? If from a catalog, does this refer to a whole vessel or a fragment/sherd?

Thanks, Garrett

[jacobite8749]

Re: White china with blue spots

Emmanuel, there is a shop in Edinburgh that has some tea pots (what we would call Brown Betty style) in that pattern. I will try and get a photo over the weekend.

[Emmanuel Dabney]

Re: White china with blue spots

Thanks for responses thus far. Some questions are likely forever to remain...

All I have is a description of 28 pieces of white with blue spots china for breakfast.

[Becky Morgan]

Re: White china with blue spots

Where was it exactly? (I know, on the table...I mean geographically where :D)

[Emmanuel Dabney]

Re: White china with blue spots

The china was likely ordered from Philadelphia to Virginia. My own brief run-ins with this mid-century period is transferware has been in the big house to slave quarters; so I'm not certain that geography would make any difference; of course, in some cases it could.

I am also not saying that these spots were transferware. I just don't know, likely never will, as all there is is a description and number.

Thanks again for responses thus far.

[John-Owen Kline]

Re: White china with blue spots

Any way to narrow down the time period?

[Emmanuel Dabney]

Re: White china with blue spots

The latest:

I forgot to say that the date is a set of brand new (i.e., newly purchased then) 1851 china.

I got a call that some blue spotted white transferware. It was as I remember her saying mixed with some floral design. She was going to look more into the pattern, etc. to determine if it is mid century or later.

We don't have much to guess on here, some others have given me some potential ideas.