A WILLOW-PATTERN CHINA

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 24, 29 January 1927, Page 20

A WILLOW-PATTERN CHINA

ROMANTIC ORIGIN OF DESIGN.

More interest attaches to the willowpatter^, china than to any other design that has been evolved during the ages (says L.L. in the , "Manchester Guardian"). The story behind the deBign is sufficiently romantic to explain this interest apart from" the beautiful appearance of the pattern. Briefly, the story is that a mandarin who lived on a little island in China had a daughter who fell in love with his secretary. The lovers fled from the island by boat. The mandarin caught them, and was about to have them beaten to death when the gods took pity on them and transformed, them into turtle doves, which flew away out of reach of the mandarin's vengeance. All these incidents are portrayed in the willowpattern china. The first piece originated in China, and is to be seen in many forms on Nankin pieces. It is not generally known that willow-pattern china appears in hundreds of different forms. It is sometimes thought that, because one piece differs from another in some point of design, one of the two pieces cannot be "genuine." That, of course, is not the case. In ,1780 the willow-pattern was introduced into England, and the first maker was Thomas Turner. His rendering of the pattern showed a bridge, in the foreground, with no figures of men upon'it. Indeed, the absenc- of mcii on the bridge is one of the signs of the earliest willow-pattern designs in England. This was followed by the inclusion of one, two, and later, three men on the bridge. In 1778 Thomas Bingley made willow-pattern china which is different from all others. The boat in the water is on the foreground, there are no trees over the house, and Wo men are seen on the little "bridge. Moreover, there is no fence.

The fact that many of the best known china manufacturers have made willow-pattern china is not generally known. Between 1708 and 1827 Josiah Spode was famous for. his "willow," which was in a very pale shade of blue. There was a pagoda on the left and two men on the bridge. He used designs of butterflies and dragons for the borders of his' services arid separate pieces.

One of the chief differences in the various renderings of the willow-pat-tern, lies in the shade of colouring apart from the actual differences in the constituents of the picture. For instance, it has been said that Spode, whose designs were clear and soft, used £very pale shade of blue, whereas Wolfe, in 1780, in the pieces which still rarely exist, used a very dark blue snade.