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Wulfrunnut Store
Mason's Ironstone, Spill Holder, Mandarin, (Masons)
Description:
BUY NOW FOR CHRISTMAS
MASON'S IRONSTONE CHINA
SPILL HOLDER
MANDARIN PATTERN
This is a lovely example of Mason's Ironstone China in one of their most traditional and attractive patterns, Mandarin.
This Spill Holder measures 6 cm (approximately 2.5) high, 6.5 cm (approximately 2.5) wide at its widest point and 2.5 cm (approximately 1) deep.
Beautiful hand-painted colours of pink, greens, orange, yellow and Imari blue are evident in this traditional design with delicate gold highlights.
This beautiful Spill Holder is in excellent condition with no chips, cracks or restoration of any kind and no apparent crazing to the glaze.
It has the more desirable old Mason's backstamp.
MASON'S IRONSTONE CHINA
The term Ironstone was coined by the Mason Family partnership when Charles James Mason registered their 'Patent Ironstone China' in July 1813.
Whatever the true nature of Mason's ceramic process, the name itself - taking strength from the paradox of strong iron blended with fine china - proved to be a marketing triumph: not only was the new 'ironstone' seemingly as hard and durable as iron, but it took advantage, by exploiting designs largely inspired by the Chinese export porcelain trade, of the demand for Oriental china patterns, a taste which had been frustrated by the curtailment of bulk imports of Chinese wares in the 1790s and by the imposition of taxes on residual porcelain imports.
Technically the clay body of ironstone is a very dense earthenware containing china stone. In colour and hardness it resembles Chinese porcelain, being of a bluish colour, though the body is generally opaque, not translucent. The glaze, however, is not so flinty hard and has a soft 'orange-peel' texture. It lends itself to decoration in underglaze blue as well as over-glaze enamels. These features explain the instant success of the ware: while closely resembling Chinese porcelain, the product is stronger, less fritty, less likely to splinter or crack at the edges, and for the same reason it is an improvement on the blue-printed pearlwares alongside which the production now runs. Ironstone/stone china potters also ensured that the edges of flatwares were robust contrasting with the knife-pared brittle rims of Chinese porcelain.
Mason's patent expired in 1827, by which time competitors with similar products were already under way. Though ironstone manufacturers continued into our own century, many of the later wares simply repeat the ironstone style of the first half of the 19th century, echoing the works of makers such as Spode/Copeland, Hicks and Meigh, Folch, Ridgway, but above all, Mason's.
With their bank foreclosing on the concern, the Mason's factory was closed in 1851 (some production continued for a few years). In 1861 the name was acquired by Ashworth's, continuing as the largest manufacturer of ironstone to the present day under the Wedgwood Group umbrella.
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