HISTORY:
Another gorgeous example of classic 'leaf' Carlton Ware from England. Yes, this is yet another item with a 'story' behind it .... back in the 1930's Carlton Ware products began appearing on the market and were so popular at the time, some "unscrupulous potteries" began releasing copies of the original designs. Japan was the major culprit and Carlton Ware could do little to stop the copies until they "thought outside the box" and using a little known clause in the South East Asia Treaty Organisation (SEATO) treaty, which prevented signatories from copying each others product designs and Japan was a signatory. Carlton Ware applied for many registered designs in Australia and marked their wares as "Designed in Australia" or "Design registered in Australia" and the copying of Carlton Ware English products by Japan became illegal overnight - the trade in fake copied products stopped. Nice work ... clever huh?
DLAT Rating: 9.9/10 (Darling Look At This!)
Unlike the other very vivid Green Carlton leafware that we have, this Green is much paler and very similar to "the real thing" (a cabbage leaf)
CARLTON WARE - Leaf Dish
Made in England (Stoke On Trent)
Pattern: 2095 3 (impressed into the ceramic, a little difficult to decipher!)
Medium size - 9" x 5.5" (228mm x 140mm)
Design: Pale Green detailed leaf with one artwork area, representing vivid Red "somethings!" perhaps Tomatoes, no idea really
Hand painted
Circa 1935 ~ 1960's - this dating is based on the backstamp which was used by Carlton Ware during this period. We suspect that around the 1950's is most likely the time period (post WWII), based on the glaze condition which remains stable and with only the slightest of failures showing (see my more detailed description below) - incredible after 75+ years since leaving the works!
BACKSTAMP DETAILS:
Artist marks are clearly visible on either dish
COSMETIC CONDITION:
This is the critical section, we have seen many examples of Carlton Ware with one thing in common, crazing (cracks in the glazing due to age, environment etc) which often results in areas of the china showing as having a Brown stain, this makes the leafware look terrible!
These two leaf dishes look just fabulous, Oh yes they are not flawless but in startling condition considering they are over 75 years old!
Both leaf dishes are, for all practical purposes, in identical condition ...
NO chips at all
NO fleabites at all
NO degradation of the colours, high gloss to the glaze.
These dishes are not faultless however and although minor, we must bring your attention to this small issue ...
Normal dry and wet testing of either dish showed NO READILY OBSERVEABLE CRAZING however I decided to look much more closely at the central stem of the leaf (the petiole) and noticed these very, very tiny crazing lines in this area. None are discoloured (happens when the ceramic underneath becomes contaminated with bacteria over the years) at all - this why I needed to look so very closely at the glaze. I found it best to view this light crazing when the dish was dry, not wet, and this means the glaze cracking is surface only and not right down to the ceramic. Most folk would not even notice this extremely light crazing in the topside central area.
Lovely as these are, my wife wants to make more space for her newly acquired '19th century porcelain's' so these 'youngsters' (by comparison to her other wares) leaf ware table dishes needs to find another caring home where they will be fully appreciated ...
