Tea Cup Tuesday-Blue and White

Hello All!

Welcome once again to Tea Cup Tuesday!

Today I am sharing a cup I found while away last fall.

Many of you have inspired me with your beautiful blue and white china.

As I did not own any blue and white transferware at all,

I paid my $1.50 and I brought this one home.

I believe pattern is called Blue Willow Pagoda...

The deep blue really is quite lovely to look at.

I adore this stylish handle.

As I was giving this cup a good cleaning,

I was taken with the artwork.

 The plate is very busy with it's intricate border.

The floor of the dish tells a story.

Here you see the landscape around the home and gardens,

and a large manor home surrounded by walls and trees. 

Can you see the woman in the doorway?

(See the many pits in the glaze?)

There is a bridge over a little brook, 

and two people are crossing it.

I wonder if the woman has just bit them good by,

or if she is waiting for their return?

 I am intrigued by the artists creative ways to paint trees.

Here we see circles with dark centers. 

I was wondering if these were blossoms?

 At the top of the plate you can see the houses on the next hill.

There is a tree with just circles, one with long arms of leaves,

and the one bottom center has a muted look to it.

 

This lovely cup too...

a grand home, surrounded by a fine fence.

The trees here too are fanciful, large balls of foliage.

Are they manicured to look that way? 

Some wealthy estate owners would have gardeners

to create a look like this.

The waves are beautiful,

the tree behind looks stenciled...

and the little house is sweet.

If I turn the cup a bit more.....

we see this scene...

Are they returning home after a good day fishing?

Now we can see the men crossing the bridge more clearly,

 and we can see that the poles are in front of them,

We might use this info to decide that the two 

fishermen on the plate are returning home.

Such a fanciful tree!

And magical birds!

 Above the fishermen on the bridge

A little boat still floats in the sea.

There is one more house gracing the bottom of the cup.

Here you can see some of the stray blue marks and the mysterious bronze ones.

They will not come out, 

They are either in the glaze or below.

A little house with the birds singing above.

You can really see the pit marks here as well as the bronze ones.

My only interest in these marks is in dating the cup.

I will happily use this cup for tea regardless.

Is it really old? 

Or was it poorly made? Lol!

Here is the backstamp:

It has the "bird" trademark, that was registered in 1880, along with

the words "Stoke On Trent". Prior to 1880, they did not mention 

the town it was manufactured in.

This cup is missing the town name.

The  blue window with "Semi China"in it was used beginning 1927 +

but had the pattern name too, which this cup does not.

So I am somewhat confused at to the date of this cup.
I did not find any exact example. 

Does anyone of you have a book on transferware backstamps?

I hope you enjoyed this cup's tale.

Or at least what I thought it was saying!

I finished my post and then thought to look up
the history behind the pattern.

I found out that it may be based on old Chinese legend,

about a rich man who's beautiful daughter falls in love

with a man he does not approve of.

They do run off together and live for a while.

But eventually it all goes wrong! 

Not a happy story. 

(it is she that waits in the doorway, it is the lover in the boat coming
to sneak her away,the men on the bridge are not fishermen...
but men coming to "take care" of the situation.)

 Art can be so dramatic!

*********

Thank you so very much for visiting today : )

I apologize for the super long post!

I truly appreciate each visit,

and if you read it all, I am impressed!

Last post you all blessed me with so 

many heart touching and encouraging comments!

Thank you!

If you would like to join Martha and me in 

sharing tea cups, just go and prepare a post with your tea cup in it

then come back here and link that post up below.

Then Martha and I can come by and visit you too!