Antiques have a unique quality of fascination. They’re tangible remainders of the past, and they evoke nostalgia and speak of another era. Here in central Pennsylvania, with its rich history of settlement, there is a wealth of antiques and no lack of interest and enthusiasm.
This month’s antiques column focuses on collecting white ironstone china.
Upstairs in Downton Abbey, the family and their guests dined from fine china, hand-painted and embellished with gold. Downstairs in the servants’ hall, it was a different story. Plates, cups and saucers, bowls, jugs and all the other pieces used for eating and serving were heavy and plain white ironstone.
Those delicate porcelain sets upstairs didn’t wear well. Easily damaged, the gold rubbed off and the painted designs were marred by use. Sturdy white ironstone, on the other hand, disdained by the upper classes, seemingly endured forever.
Here in America, ironstone traveled west in covered wagons and survived life on the trail. When a steamboat that sank in 1856 in the Missouri River was dug up from a Kansas cornfield 132 years later, hundreds of English ironstone dishes were recovered, intact. At the Vanderbilt Mansion in Hyde Park, N.Y., there is a display of ornate porcelain in the dining room. But downstairs in the kitchen, the table is set with white ironstone.
The history of ironstone began in England in the early 1700s, a spin-off of the China trade. Tea drinking was all the rage, with the preferred tea service being white porcelain imported from the Far East. Spurred on by the new trend, both Continental and British potters started developing porcelain as well. Even though local production gradually took over, this love affair with Chinese ceramics had a lasting effect. The word “china” became part of the English vocabulary as the general term for glazed pottery.
Fine china is fired at very high temperatures, around 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit, during which the glaze and clay body become one cohesive unit. The result is a thin, elegant and translucent product. You can determine if a plate, for example, is porcelain by placing your hand on the back and holding it up to the light. You should be able to see the shadow of your hand through the china. But, porcelain was expensive, impractical and only for those who could own such luxuries. What about everyone else, the vast majority of the population?
Although clay vessels had been crafted for thousands of years, European pottery before the 18th century had more in common with a porous terra-cotta flower pot than the sophisticated glazed whiteware coming from Asia. For most households in Europe and Colonial America, wooden trenchers and pewter plates were the norm. Not surprisingly, ordinary people soon wanted to have “china” dishes, too. Demand grew for affordable, water-tight chinaware strong enough to be shipped, tough enough to withstand hard use and handsome enough to please emerging tastes.
The potteries of Staffordshire, a county in the English Midlands, were already producing redware, a utilitarian earthenware, for tiles and drain pipes. Now, at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, came more effective ovens and better firing techniques. Special white clays and the addition of other minerals to the mixture, mainly flint and Cornish granite, created a substance much harder and stronger. Glazes were also improved by adding feldspar, which imparted a lustrous and durable finish. Variants of the new commodity were given several names by different makers: Creamware, Stone China, White Granite and, patented in 1813, Ironstone China.
Staffordshire reigned as the center of stoneware manufacture. With its access to the ports of Liverpool, it was able to capture the overseas market, particularly in America, since nothing comparable was being produced here until the later-1800s. Beginning before the Revolutionary War, sailing ships laden with English china, frequently as ballast, supplied the United States with tons of Staffordshire ironstone.
Americans were voracious consumers of this import, which came from potters such as Powell & Bishop, Meakin and Johnson Bros. Besides plain white ironstone, there were ribbed, scalloped, paneled and squared shapes. Especially desirable were pieces molded with intricate raised motifs of fruits and grains, flowers, vines and leaves.
Available in a huge range from soup tureens to butter pats, plus all manner of washstand articles, English ironstone was the standard of quality. It had the status, so much so that when American potteries began to compete, they often included a lion, unicorn or crown on their backstamp. It didn’t say England, of course, but it lent the impression of being just as good. Homer Laughlin, of West Virginia, one of the earliest and most successful producers, had a bold counter to this English dominance: a backstamp depicting an American eagle overpowering the British lion.
A great amount of 19th- and early-20th-century ironstone found its way into the homes of central Pennsylvania. Whether coming from potteries along the Ohio River or from England, it was a hard-working part of daily life, and much is still around today to use and enjoy. Versatile, understated and compatible with any décor, as well as the perfect background for food presentation, antique white ironstone is truly living history that’s both beautiful and eminently practical.
A special collection of rare pieces of white ironstone china will be on display at Apple Hill Antiques during the month of May.
Peggy L. Hartman has been an antiques dealer for more than 20 years. She is the author of the murder mystery “Antiques To Die For.”
