Willow Pattern Garden
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The 'Legend' of the Willow Pattern
Garden
Blue willow plates show a Chinese scene widely believed
to be the picture story of the Mandarin's daughter who fell in love with
her father's poor secretary, their elopement, pursual and transformation
into a pair of doves. The reality is less romantic, but interesting nonetheless.
The English artist Thomas Turner, working in the Staffordshire potteries
in the late 18th Century, designed the motif, probably making a mix of
images from earlier Chinese plates. That English made pottery was exported
to China where Chinese potters imitated it for re-export, laboriously copying
with their brushes the English transfers. |
