Penrose Antiques

Description

We have the perfect gift for the collector of Old Derby porcelain, a truly stunning and rather unusual early Robert Bloor period Derby dessert plate decorated by James Hill.

This lovely derby plate is un-gilded and is beautifully painted in blues greens, yellows and purples with Convulvulus Minor. The back of the plate carries in script the plant name Convulvulus Minor, the Duesbury mark and the number 25 to the foot rim all in the same iron red along with the decorators mark 21 used by James Hill in a lighter iron red.

What makes this plate unusual is that it is formed from a late Kean period bone china paste, see (Owen, and Barkla, Journal of Archaeological Sciences, 24, pp. 127-140, 1997), but glazed with a Bloor period glaze as evidenced by the faint craquelure and pitting. This suggests that the plate was decorated very early on in the Bloor period when Bloor was experimenting with different glazes on the remains of the Kean period bone china white-ware, c1810-12.

The plate is 8.6 inches (22cm) in diameter and is in a very good to excellent condition other than a few surface marks to the decoration, some craquelure, pitting and a glazed over imperfection in the rim at about the 10 o'clock position