TRANSLUCENT CHINA NEW PRODUCT IN BRITAIN

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29130, 16 February 1960, Page 2

TRANSLUCENT CHINA NEW PRODUCT IN BRITAIN

[From the London correspondent of “The Press.’’)

For the last 200 years, English tableware has been of two kinds —expensive bone china and the more generally used earthenware. Now the firm of Royal Doulton has announced that it will introduce a third choice which it is simply calling English translucent china, a ware that has all the desirable qualities of fine bone china—its delicacy of feel and appearance, its characteristics for taking a wide range of colours and decorative treatments, its toughness—at about half the price of conventional china or very little more than good earthenware. Royal Doulton showed the first seven designs in the new china which passes the critical test of translucency: hold a plate up to the light and the shadow of the hand behind it can be seen through the china. Prices of dinner services for six persons in translucent china range from llgns. to 16gns. The new product will be on the market next January and a member of the firm says that samples have already reached New Zealand. First Designs “Our policy in the first year has been to produce a range of shapes and designs that will cover some of the more important segments of the market,” said the managing-director, Mr J. K. Warrington, at the London showing of the new dinner and tea services. “These will be reinforced each year over the next few years.” “Tumbling Leaves” is the most modestly priced design on rimless or “coupe” shape plates. The very simple leaf pattern is in restrained autumn colours. The rims of the “Burgundy” set, in the same basic shape, are richly decorated with a wreath of green and purple grape leaves. The most ornate pattern is that of “Old Colony” —fluted edgings, with a formal and floral centre in blue and brown. “Citadel,” the most expensive design, is discretely plain —lustrous white china with a spark&ng border of pure gold. Far less china, in proportion to population, is sold in Britain than

in many other countries. But Doulton does not accept that English women are not china conscious. The firm believes it is purely a matter of price that china is not in more general use. They now expect translucent china will change all that. It should also add strength to sales abroad, especially in North America. Sales of good Japanese china, for example, at present far outstrip English sales in the United States. At the same time, the firm has announced another attraction to United States buyers. The potteries are now making a range of figures representing eighteenth century characters of Williamsburg, Virginia, as “a tribute to American history and culture.” Royal Doulton potteries have worked on the idea of a new china for about 10 years. They now guardedly explain that they produce its whiteness, translucency and strength with a blending cf felspar, selected china clays and “certain other materials.” But it contains no animal bone, which usually makes 50 per cent, of the ingredients of bone china.