Vintage Plant Tuscan Teacup And Saucer – Deep Yellow Ground, Ochre Scrollwork, Hand Coloured Bouquet, Winged Crown Mark, England 1930s

A Tuscan teacup and saucer with a deep yellow ground, closer to amber than to cream. Ochre scrollwork runs over the yellow and opens into white reserves, and inside each reserve sits a bouquet — pink peony, yellow blooms, small blue-violet flowers and grey-green leaves. The cup is moulded in low flutes and stands on a small foot; both rims are gilded.

Three layers went on, in order, each with its own firing. The yellow ground first, over the whole surface. Then the ochre scrollwork over it — follow one scroll and the line thickens and thins as it turns, which a printed border does not do. Then the bouquets in the reserves the scrollwork left open.

The colour in those bouquets was laid by hand: no two peonies carry the same weight of pink, and the flower centres are dotted differently one from another. Gold came last, along both rims. A deep ground like this one is doing a particular job — the darker the yellow, the brighter the white reserve reads, and the bouquet sits forward because of it.

The nineteen-twenties to the forties, and the mark narrows it three ways. It reads Plant · Tuscan China · Made in England around a winged crown. The Tuscan name dates from 1902; the winged crown came in during the twenties; and the words Fine English Bone China, used from 1947, are not here. A pattern number, 2187/2, is written in red beside it.

R. H. & S. L. Plant of the Tuscan Works, Longton — a pottery that stayed in one family for some sixty years, until Wedgwood bought it in 1966 and the name became Royal Tuscan. The absence of that word is a date, not a grade: this is the older half. Put it where the light is low and the amber does the work.