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For someone who appreciated the finer things in life,who wants everything to be just right, the luxury and elegance of Spode and MInton is for you.They have something for every stylish dining occasion,whethere formal or relaxed, with friends and family.

If you want your home to be beautiful make sure to add a value to this one with beautiful Spode and Minton Porcelain Sets. Timeless-Elegant.Superior quality and never go out of style You'll get absolutely what you want.

The History of Spode and Minton

Josiah Spode I,
1733-1797

Josiah Spode, a former apprentice of the great Staffordshire potter, Thomas Whieldon, and continued by his son Josiah Spode II. Josiah Spode I established a factory in 1761 in Shelton,and another in the town of Stoke in 1764.

He built up a highly successful business, first in cream ware (a delicate cream-colored earthenware) and later (from 1784) in pearl ware (fine white-glazed earthenware) transfer-printed in blue; his son, also trained as a potter, ran the firm's warehouse in London. Josiah Spode II led the development of bone china, which became the standard English porcelain body from about 1800 onwards.

Spode's two famous contributions to the Pottery Industry were the perfection of transfer printing in 1784 and the development of fine bone china in about 1799. (although bone china is a porcelain it is always referred to as bone china) The successful development of bone china by the Spode factory at Stoke-on-Trent (around 1770-present - the exact date the factory was stared is not known), for wares of outstanding beauty and economy in the Regency style of the early 1800s, ensured its preeminence among commercial producers.

Spode's nearest rival was Minton (1796-present), outstanding in the Victorian period for its "art" porcelains. Among Spode's chief followers in producing bone china for the mass market were Davenport (c. 1793-1887); Wedgwood for a short period between 1812 and 1822 (Wedgwood later re-introduced bone china production, and they continue production today); Ridgway, New Hall, and Rockingham. A host of lesser concerns served the expanding middle-class market.

Spode created many of his patterns after Chinese designs, he developed a highly effective method of transfer printing with blue under glazes. He also experimented with a transparent but durable bone china, arriving at a formula that is still used. His son Josiah Spode II, 1754'1827, took over the pottery factory in 1797. He is credited with having introduced feldspar into Spode ware and for producing pottery of a high technical excellence. Spode remained at the forefront of bone china and stone china production until 1833, when the factory was acquired by William Taylor Copeland and Thomas Garrett: it remained under their names until 1847, when Copeland became the sole owner.

Tomas Minton
1765-1836

Thomas Minton founded his factory in 1793/6 in Stoke-upon-Trent. Minton was Spode's nearest rival.

He was famous for Minton ware - a cream-coloured and blue-printed earthenware majolica, bone china, and Parian porcelain; his factory was outstanding in the Victorian period for its "art" porcelains. He also popularized the famous so-called Willow pattern.

Herbert Minton, 1793'1858, succeeded his father as head of the firm, and to him was due its development and reputation. He enlisted the services of artists and skilled artisans.

The first products of the Minton factory were blue transfer-printed wares, but in 1798 bone china (porcelain containing bone ash) was introduced, with considerable success. Until 1836, when Thomas Minton died and his son Herbert took over the business, the factory's staple products consisted of useful and unpretentious tablewares in painted or printed earthenware or bone china, following the typical shapes and decorative patterns of the period; figures and ornamental porcelains were made increasingly from the 1820s. In the 1820s he started production of bone china; this early Minton is regarded as comparable to French S'vres, by which it was greatly influenced. Minton's was the only English china factory of the 19th century to employ a S'vres process called p'te-sur-p'te (ie: painted decoration in white clay slip instead of enamel before glazing). Minton also produced Parian figures.

The Minton factory was the most popular supply source in the 19th century of dinnerware made to order for embassies and for heads of state and the factory is still producing to the present day as part of the Royal Doulton Group. Herbert Minton, one of the outstanding entrepreneurs of the 19th century, introduced new techniques and methods of production and established Mintons reputation for both industrial enterprise and artistic excellence.

A. W. N. Pugin, Sir Henry Cole, and Prince Albert were close associates whose designs were used by Minton. The painter and sculptor Alfred Stevens, the French sculptors Hugues Prot't and 'mile Jeannest, and the painter John Simpson were also employed there.

In 1845, Herbert Minton took Michael Daintry Hollins into partnership, and the tile-making side of the business became known as Minton Hollins & Co.Herbert Minton's successful experiments in making encaustic tiles during the 1840s had set him at the forefront of a huge industry supplying the needs of institutions, churches, and domestic interiors all over the world. Later, he was a leader in exploiting industrial techniques for producing printed and painted tiles, and for the rest of the century the firm produced tiles in a vast array of styles, many of them designed by leading artists such as Christopher Dresser, Walter Crane, John Moyr Smith, and William Wise. Relief-moulded tiles were introduced to the Minton range from the 1860s. Minton produced some of the finest examples of Parian ware, a marble-like unglazed porcelain body developed during the 1840s and used most successfully for sculptural pieces. John Bell, the American Hiram Powers, and Albert Carrier de Belleuse were among the sculptors who produced statuary for Minton; scaled-down models of larger pieces by contemporary and past sculptors were also produced in Parian, and sometimes the material was used in combination with glazed and painted bone china for display pieces.

The French ceramist L'on Arnoux became art director at Minton in 1849 and remained there until 1892. Among his achievements were the development of Renaissance-inspired ceramics such as inlaid earthenwares, pieces painted in the style of Limoges porcelain, and the richly colourful majolica, first shown at the Great Exhibition of 1851 and used for all kinds of objects from large garden ornaments and elaborate display pieces to dishes and jugs for the table. Marc-Louis Solon introduced the p'te-sur-p'te technique to Minton, having developed it previously at S'vres. This laborious process involves building up a design in relief with layers of liquid slip, each one having to dry before the next is applied. Using this technique, Solon and his apprentices modelled diaphanously clad maidens and tumbling cherubs on vases and plaques with a skill that was unmatched at any other factory. After Herbert Minton's death in 1858, the firm was run by his nephew Colin Minton Campbell, a similarly dynamic and innovative director. Oriental decoration preoccupied Minton from the 1860s onward. Highly original pieces, both in earthenware and bone china, evoked Chinese cloisonn' enamels, Japanese lacquer and ivories, Islamic metalwork and Turkish pottery. In 1870, Minton's Art Pottery Studio was established in Kensington, London, under the direction of the painter W. S. Coleman, in order to encourage both amateur and professional artists to decorate china and tiles for Minton; although popular and influential, the studio was not rebuilt when it burnt down in 1875.

Minton's output of distinguished ornamental wares continued unabated to the end of the 19th century and beyond. From 1902, a range of slip-trailed majolica wares represented Minton's contribution to Art Nouveau. Minton's ability to pursue these often expensive technical and artistic challenges is a tribute to the success of the tablewares which have been the firm's financial backbone throughout its history. As part of Royal Doulton Tableware Ltd., Minton is today able to fulfill sumptuous special commissions while still producing the tablewares that ensure its economic success.

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