Blue and white (porcelain) Willow pattern

[Cmitchell]

Why is it always just Blue and White? I know it now sometimes has gold/silver edging, but why just a blue and white pattern?

All help greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance

Mitchell

[shaneystar2]

True old blue and white normally has no gold or silver edging .Patterns in Blue and White were first used to decorate ceramics in the 17th C by the chinese when they were hand painted onto porcelain which was an expensive process .Some call it Flow Blue .
It became more affordable in the 18th C as transfer printing was introduced .Cobalt blue was the only colour decoration that could be successfully applied to porcelain under the glaze.
Then people like Spode ,Wedgewood and Minton jumped on the bandwagon with different patterns .For example Asiatic Pheasants ,Willow .the famous Spode Italian pattern .Then came sheet patterns and all manner of others .
I have quite a collection of B&W and no glittery bits !
Blue and White Pottery .A Collectors Guide by Gillian Neale ..from Millers Antiques is a really useful book if want to know more about the history of it .

[ksoph]

my parents used to be antique dealers and sometimes we would come across a green & white pattern aswell, but no one wanted to buy it! so i think the blue and white was just more popular therefore there is more of it around.

[Narolines]

Don't forget that English "willow pattern" - it doesn't exist anywhere else, and was concocted by Josiah Spode - is not porcelain but tin-glazed earthenware, produced, like Dutch Delft, in imitation of early Chinese blue-and-white porcelain. At the time of its introduction Europe did not have the secret of porcelain production, and the real thing imported from China was terrifically expensive. Virtually all the examples of Chinese painted porcelain exported to Europe at that time were blue and white, for the reason touched on by Shaneystar, so naturally so were the European "lookalike" products. Imitation Oriental ceramics became so popular that many manufacturers introduced ranges in the same tin-glazed earthenware but depicting typically English scenes - usually of rural market towns, hunting scenes or idyllic village greens. Incidentally, I've never seen any willow pattern with a metallic edge.

[Narolines]

Oops - should have added that while willow pattern is almost exclusively blue & white (though I have seen the odd brown example) the English scenes were generally available in green, brown ad a dull red as well.