CUP-PLATES
It is surprising how rare the cup-plates of the eighteenth century and
the early nineteenth century have become, considering their universal
use during that period when they were regarded as necessary and
fashionable accessories to the tea-set. In the days of our
great-grandmothers the etiquette of tea-drinking was markedly different
from that which maintains in our own day. Then the tea-cup occupied much
the position that the tea-bowl still holds with the Chinese, and the
saucer that of the tiny Chinese cup. In other words--we blush to confess
it!--our tea-drinking ancestors used the saucers of their tea-cups to
cool their tea in, and while the saucers were so utilized, tiny plates
(like the plates of a doll’s tea-set) were employed as holders for the
cups, thus to protect the polished top of the tea-table or, perhaps, the
trays of satinwood from being stained by the moist cup rims.
Just why, when so many of these little cup-plates were in use, so few
have survived seems a mystery. While tea-cups, cream-pitchers and
sugar-bowls abound, cup-plates still remain elusive. This is because
these tiny objects, being truly plates in miniature, were, when they
fell into disuse (and before collectors of old china and old earthenware
began to take an interest in them), given to children to play with, thus
meeting the general destruction to which nearly all dolls’ dishes of all
periods succumb. This seems the plausible theory for accounting for the
scarcity of the cup-plate. Nevertheless, despite its rarity, the
collector need not be discouraged. In all parts of the country where
settlement has been early the collector of old china still stands a good
chance of picking up cup-plates of all sorts. Even the glass ones are
yet to be found.
True it is that any exceptionally fine cup-plates offered in the antique
shops generally bring high prices. For instance, a four-inch cup-plate
brought twenty-three dollars at auction a year ago, and another fetched
thirty-six dollars at private sale. Certain other cup-plates which have
come to the author’s attention have been held for prices running from
fourteen to forty-five dollars apiece. Although the collector of
moderate means may not expect to indulge in many purchases, he is apt to
run across fine pieces at bargain prices that will send his spirits to
the level of true elation. First of all, however, he must study the
subject and learn to know a cup-plate when he sees one, for the
successful collector is never a hunter of Snarks!
Only two hundred and fifty years ago the East India Company considered
the gift of a couple of pounds of tea a princely one to make the King of
England! Pepys gives us an inkling as to how uncommon a thing
tea-drinking was in his time. However, the use of cup-plates is a much
later one than Pepys’s day; they were not the fashion until tea-drinking
had become an almost universal custom.
The illustrations will give the reader an idea of the variety to be
found in cup-plates. While the pieces put to this use are nearly of a
size, their diameters vary by a fraction of an inch to an inch or more.
One of the best known cup-plate series is Hall’s “Hampshire Scenery,”
with borders of primroses, hepatica, and other flowers resembling many
of the Clews borders. Their color is rich blue. John Hall & Sons were
Staffordshire potters (1810-1820), whose marks on wares Chaffers places
in the “uncertain” list. Then there is a “Quadrupeds Series.” The mark
on this resembles an extended bell, on which appears the name “I. HALL”
in capital letters, with the word “QUADRUPEDS” in crude capital letters
below, on a curtain-like extension with inverted flutings. But far more
beautiful than either of these sets, and more interesting to the
American collector, are those of a series in rich blue, one of which
shows the Park Square Theatre, Boston, and bears the characteristic
oak-leaf and acorn border of R. Stevenson and Williams. All the designs
of Ralph Stevenson are eagerly sought by collectors of old china. The
Stevenson works were in Cobridge, Staffordshire, but all record of both
potter and pottery seems to have disappeared. Another cup-plate series
contains a view of the first United States Mint, Philadelphia, and has
the characteristic border--of scrolls, eagles, and flowers--of Joseph
Stubbs. This potter made comparatively few pieces for the American
market. From 1790 to 1830 he was owner of the Dale Hall Works at
Burslem. His cup-plates are among the most desired objects of the sort.
Many cup-plates bore mottoes and verses such as those of the Liverpool
type, a Romance Series, for instance, containing one known as “Returning
Hopes,” with the ardent verse appearing thereon as follows:
When seamen to their homes return,
And meet their wives or sweethearts dear,
Each loving lass with rapture burns,
To find her long-lost lover near.
These Liverpool cup-plates, by reason of their pictorial nature, have
always been popular with collectors, hence the scarcity of them in
antique and curio shops. Private collectors, too, seem loath to part
with specimens of such printed wares. The glass cup-plates in native
American manufacture are in no sense comparable esthetically with the
cup-plates of porcelain and pottery of foreign fabrique. Still they are
interesting historically. The majority of the glass cup-plates were
crystalline glass, though some were colored--blue, green, yellow, brown,
amber, rose, purple, etc. There were many glass factories in America in
colonial days as well as in the nineteenth century, and American
households were well supplied by them with cup-plates, although in
design these were, more often than not, of comparatively little beauty.
Among the patterned cup-plate wares the collector will find, many
varieties of the hundreds of varieties of the “Willow” pattern may with
reasonable certainty be traced to their various potters; but this is a
special study in itself, and one entailing the
[Illustration:
_Courtesy of Mary H. Northend and Mr. William A. Cooper_
Cup-Plates
Landscape, Wild Rose Border Landscape, Falls of Killarney
Pressed Glass Cup-Place
Portrait of Henry Clay
Floral Pattern Hyena Design]
[Illustration:
_Courtesy of Mr. Charles Allen Munn_
Early Printed Cottons
Allegory of Franklin, and Apotheosis of Washington]
surmounting of many difficulties. The _amateur_ need not concern himself
with the matter completely in order to enjoy the few examples that may
chance to discover themselves to him.
The lovely dark-blue Davenport ware, with designs in the Chinese style,
are worth looking for. Ware such as this is familiar to every collector
and is coming to be appreciated more generally than formerly. From even
a small collection of cup-plates much pleasure may be derived, and the
collector need not feel that it is hopeless to start getting together
examples of worth. If things are being picked up here and there on the
one hand, it is true that, on the other, examples of cup-plates fully
worth while are coming to the market as well as leaving it.