Hello! I hope it has been as lovely where you are... we have had warm and lovely spring weather, which we have really enjoyed.
With Queen Victoria's 200th birthday recently passed, I was thinking of the Victoriana I have... and enjoying thinking about the Victorian age... which officially spreads from the coronation of Queen Victoria in 1937 until her death in 1901... although it intruded a few tears beyond that until the Edwardian era... named for one of her sons who succeeded her.
I have always loved the era while being aware of it's drawbacks... and shared some things from my grandmother born during the reign of Queen Victoria. Here are a few more items of interest I hope...
The Victorian era included several different design trends due to her reign lasting for 64 years. Among these, I love art nouveau and another which partially overlapped that calle the Aesthetic Movement.
The designs were drawn for naturalitic and orientalism motifs, and often in collages or vignettes like this plate above by E. E Elsworth in the Lily And Fan pattern from 1878...
The great thing is that I can tell you the exact date this plate design was registered, because it has the Design Registry diamond or kite mark as it is called, or Rd. kite. There are charts of reference which decipher each of the letters to decode the type of item... ceramics/dinnerware, and the date codes of May 14, 1878. In 1883, the diamond mark was replaced with just numbers.
So helpful forknowing when the design was registered!
Also a fun thing any Victorian would recognize is this sucrier or sugar box. Sugar was refined and packedinto and sold in cones, which were then cut into chunks... much larger than sugar cubes. As sugar becasme more refined, the sugar bowls got smaller. The above sucrier dates to the 1880s and is actually an American piece by Burroughs and Mountford which as Aesthetic design.
They are used for a cookie jar or tea caddy nowadays, being so much bigger than a sugar bowl.
This is a superb little French 19th century Haviland, Limoges France demitasse cup and saucer... made in France during the Victorian era in England...
The design is a lovely blue floral with a gold hatching overlay and borders...it is exquisitely made...
This Haviland & Co. mark dates it to 1875-1885. Limoges is not the maker, but denotes the area of France, Limoges. It is like seeing things in England marked Staffordshire... that is not a pottery but a city full of potters... or was... more's the pity... There were actually several hundres potters in the Limoges area. Many signed with the maker or pottery name as well, but many only signed their wares Limoges which often confuses people.
And another of my favorite patterns, which was made in several different variations by many different potteries from the beginning end of the 18th century all the way through until the 1930s. The pattern is variously called Grandmother's, Chelsea, Chelsea Sprig, Chelsea Grape and others. Often the design had copper luster applied to the "sprigs" or applied blue design elements. You can see the relation to Wedgwood jasperware, but a different material and approach.
This set is by Addeleys who probably produced the pattern the longest and of the best quality. The mark dates it to the 1890s.
You cans see the delicacy of the porcelain, as the applied blue sprigs show through.
And lastly another Aesthetic Movement design of Poppies with a squares shape....
I tried for weeks to see if I could identify the impressed mark to find the maker, but it is just too obscurred. I have asked several specialists, and no one recognizes it and all have concluded it eas a small pottery working in Staffordshire in the 1880s... so that's all I can tell you.
Two different books about the Victorian era are favorites of mine for different reasons.
What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew
by Daniel Pool
covers the pre Victorian Regency era when when Jane Austen lived into the Victorian era.
It covers phrases, food, dress, traditions and everything of interest from an entertaining, lighthearted account.
The other book...
Life In Victorian England
by W. J. Reader is a more stark, documentary from a serious historical perspective, and is not for light reading.
It is eye opening if you have found yourself watching Victoria on PBS, and wishing you had lived during that period.
The facts are stark, unflinching, historically supported and documented.
It helps to understand why Charles Dickens was such a crusader for the poor.
It actually has parallels with our times... as people attempt to come to terms with new and unknown technology that changes an entire nation and causes change on all sides, for good and evil.
My grandmother, Emma Bridgewater nee Rice.
Here pictured at age 18 participating in country manor theatricals.
She was born in 1881 in Leicester, England.
Her life spanned Queen Victoria's Golden and Diamond Jubilees, the death of Victori in 1901, World War I, immigrating to the US with her new husband...the space age, the internet and many things until her death at 99.
And I am so grateful for her remembrances and treasures of the Victorian age she shared with and left to me.
Her birthday is June 21st, and I remember her fondly every year.
