BACKGROUND:
My wife has handed me yet another 'nice' example of classic 'leaf' Carlton Ware from England, she collected a lot of these at one time and ever so slowly she passes a piece to me to "find a new home for this one will you dear"?
Yes, this Carltonware has 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, Japan was a signatory. Carlton Ware applied for many registered designs in Australia and marked their wares as "Designed in Australia" and the copying of Carlton Ware English products by Japan became illegal overnight - the trade in fake copied products stopped. Clever move on the part of Carlton, huh?
This all means that this Carltonware was made in England, the backstamp indicating "Designed in Australia" was to keep those Japanese copycats at bay!
DLAT Rating: 9/10 (Darling Look At This!)
CARLTON WARE - Handled Leaf Dish
Made in England (Stoke On Trent)
Design: Distinctive pale Yellow base colouring with a dominant Purple - Yellow five petal flower, which looks similar to a Plumeria variety. Nice dark Brown single tab handle to one end of the dish.
Hand painted (decorator's marks on the underside)
Circa 1940's ~ 1950's - based on the backstamp, with the decorator's marks and the impressed product code 1670 on the underside.
DIMENSIONS:
Shape: Leaf like, shallow trinket or sweets table dish
145mm x 130m x 10mm deep
BACKSTAMP DETAILS:
Artist marks are clearly visible just above the backstamp and to the right hand edge
The product coding is a little more difficult to see in the photograph, right at the top (central area)
COSMETIC CONDITION:
This is the critical section, my wife has seen many examples of Carlton Ware with one thing in common, crazing (cracks in the glazing due to age, environment etc) which most often results in areas of the china showing as having a Brown stain. This is not a great look!
We go to great pains in an attempt to preserve the condition of our chinaware, as best we can, and this dish is a good example of this ...
Crazing happens to the best of us over time! Changes in temperature and humidity cause our skins (the glaze) to crack after long periods of time - look at Grandma ... her skin doesn't look the same as when she was much younger! Other than carefully storing and cleaning these dishes, you can slow down the crazing process but not stop it. Once crazing occurs, it is crucial to ensure no "nasties" (bacteria) get down in those cracks and start discolouring the base ceramic material - this is where the Brown stains come from.
When dry, this dish looks just great but when hand washed, very fine crazing can be seen. Once dried, it looks great once again! Magic (not) ...
Most important is that even when wet I could not see signs of the dreaded discolouration - so those nasties have gone to live in someone else's chinaware!
NO chips at all
NO fleabites
NO degradation of the colours observed, the Yellow base colouring appears to be fine and certainly the flower foliage is a nice "natural" Green, not vivid as with some of the other Carltonware pieces I have been handed.
Lovely as it is, my wife wants to make more space for her other '1930's art china or ceramic treasures' so this dish (and her other Carltonware products) needs to find a owner who would like to take a leaf out of her book ...
