Vintage English Floral Band Teacup And Saucer – Pink Roses Blue Blooms, Black Lace Edging, Gilt Rim, Original Pair, Made In England 1930s

A teacup and saucer in white English china, banded rather than sprigged. A ribbon about three-quarters of an inch wide runs round each rim, packed edge to edge with pink roses, yellow and blue blooms and green leaves, closed above and below by a fine black line with a saw-tooth edge. A gilt line finishes the rim; the saucer centre is plain.

The band is printed. Follow it round and the same group of flowers comes back, and where the print meets itself the join sits between two leaves rather than through one — a printer's choice, not a painter's. The black edging came off the same plate, at the same time as the flowers.

Banding is a different idea from sprigging, and it came off cloth. A nineteenth-century lace border was made to run round an edge and hold it, and this does the same: the eye reads the shape of the cup first and the flowers second. The saucer follows the rule for saucers rather than plates — decoration crowded to the rim, the centre left clear.

Between the wars, or a little after. The mark under the cup reads Made in England and nothing else. The wording matters: England alone came in with the tariff laws of 1891, but the fuller Made in England only became standard from about the twenties — so this is the later of the two. A pattern number, 4231, is written in beside it.

From the potteries that supplied retailers rather than sold under their own name — common work in England, and marked with the country alone. Which is why china like this is scarcer than the grand kind: it went into the kitchen cupboard, not the cabinet, and was used until it broke. Ninety years on, this one is still a pair, still bright, and good to pour into.