The truth about transferware

Basically every article I've seen written on antique transferware highlights the fact that it was made for the poor. That well-off households had handpainted china in the 18th and 19th centuries.

I'm interested in where the line actually went. I recall seeing documentaries about big English country houses and the kitchens had sometimes big transferware platters. Were those used for serving back in the day too? What classes of society and what sorts of households used transferware and who did not?

 

Not sure I agree with the basic premise, but that is more a gut feel rather than a learned observation.

Transfer ware allowed mass market decoration at lower cost and so became more affordable to more people.

I would expect that many grand families used transferware for everyday use and, increasingly as time progressed, for fine dining.

 

I believe that ceramics are largely fashion driven. Transferware came along as part of the mass production of pottery in the 18th C and has flourished ever since. Some popularity seems to be local and may be based on what was available through local markets.

Anyway, you can view archaeology to discover what people were using in certain areas. There is also a lot of ongoing research on slave ceramics and how that might relate to economics.

Here is a site in Maryland that has some information but it's not all encompassing.
http://www.jefpat.org/diagnostic/Post-Colonial Ceramics/Printed Earthenwares/index-PrintedEarthenwares.htm

And slave site research which includes lots of data on types of ceramics.
http://www.daacs.org/

 

That slave site is very interesting, thanks for posting it SIS

 

If the transferware platters were seen/stored in the kitchen, perhaps they were for use at the staff dinner table, not for the family upstairs.

 

When I was volunteering at Mount Vernon I did some work on the South Grove Midden which is included as one of the daacs sites. There is lots of research going on concerning slave sites and items they had.

 

It wasn't for the poor over here. They had undecorated coarse china at best, metal platters at worst or wood if you were rural. Transferware was middle class or for the better off working classes. Transferware was indeed used in kitchens, partly for staff, but also simply as kitchen china - take the roast out, put it on a plate to rest.

And yes, also used at the better end of it for breakfast and luncheon china. Patterns copied more costly Oriental wares. It was really only the upper and aristocratic familes that used commissioned and customised bone china and porcelain. Transferware wasn't all that cheap.

 

I was thinking, why is there such a small number of transferware with gilded details? Gilding was present everywhere in the 19th century, so was it just a price reason or something else?

 

One of the things about gilding is that it is very fragile and wears off easily. The cost of the gold involved is insignificant. Can't imagine what the cost of gold would have to be to make collecting gilded china worth it for the metal.