In passing…

I’ve been looking for a picture of a cress dish and I found this one which, as you can see, is Worcester and clearly is not intended to have a cover – but what matters is that the piercings are shown. The cress is washed and put into the dish and the pierced holes allow surplus water to drip through onto the plate beneath.  I’ve seen a L’toft one, the owner showed it to me and the stand shown below would match exactly, printed pinecone pattern and all.  This stand was in my auction of October 2015 and it fetched £805.  This might seem a high price, but they are very rare and there were at least two people who really wanted it.

The Worcester one in the link is the same pattern, you can see – and how do we know which is Lowestoft and which is Worcester?  In brief, with experience.  I’m not a great expert on 18th century china and don’t pretend to be; all I know is Lowestoft though I’ve a reasonable working knowledge of other factories.

Worcester was certainly the more famous factory and sometimes a Lowestoft piece with a pattern also used by Worcester had a crescent mark underneath in imitation.  Naughty, hey.

In other news, the Christmas tree has been taken down, it being Twelfth Night, and the drawing room looks much less cluttered.

5 comments on “In passing…

  1. Blue Witch

    Fascinating, thank you – I’ve never seen a cress dish.

    For your next auction… send some normal ones over and I’ll get MrBW to drill some holes in appropriate places, then we’ll glaze the holes and refire. Must quadruple the price?

    Isn’t 12th Night January 5th? If the 25th is 1, 12th = 5?

    Reply
    1. Z Post author

      A dish that shape would be just as rare, whether pierced or not. But if several magically turn up, I’ll bear your suggestion in mind…

      It’s correct to start counting the day after Christmas,so the 12th day of Christmas is the 6th. https://www.timeanddate.com/holidays/uk/epiphany – though some people count from Christmas Day and it doesn’t actually matter, does it? 🙂

      Reply
  2. Blue Witch

    though some people count from Christmas Day and it doesn’t actually matter, does it?

    Ah but it does, if one subscribes to the ‘bad luck to take FOTCR™ decorations down before Twelfth Night’ malarkey.

    If you put ‘Twelfth Night date” into Google it tells you it’s Thursday 5th… and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelfth_Night_(holiday) says it’s 5th (as decreed by the CofE)… if t’inter is confused, is it any wonder the people are?

    Reply
    1. Z Post author

      Just shows how little it matters, if it can be either. And if you are superstitious, which I’m not, then you’ll either think it’s bad luck to take them down before 12th night or after 12th night – so if you think it’s the former, take them down on the 6th and if your fear is the latter, you can play safe by removing them on the 5th. In fact, lots of people put them up so early that they’re heartily fed up with the tree by Christmas Day and remove it within a day or two.

      I’ve only ever known Epiphany as the 6th January, always been told that’s the 12th day as you count it from the day after Christmas, and I’m a churchgoing member of the CofE, so that’s good enough for me! But I still don’t think it matters. I know plenty of people who absolutely scoff at the thought of any sort of religion, afterlife or the supernatural, but who are superstitious and I rather love that lack of logic 🙂

      Reply

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