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ENGLISH MINIATURE CHINA BY SUZY BENDER DOLLHOUSE MINIATURES, SEPTEMBER 1998 Reproduced with permission from Dollhouse Miniatures magazine (c) 2001 Waukesha WI |
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Stokesay Ware's Sovereign Blue and Willow pattern, displayed on a dresser back by Karen |
Toy
china, always highly collectible and still in great demand today, is available
to American collectors. Think of traditional English tea services and delicate dinner services and the names of famous fine china manufacturers like Wedgwood, Spode, Coalport, Royal Doulton, Crown Derby, Royal Worcester and Minton are likely come to mind. Over the last 200 years, these same English china manufacturers also made small versions of their fine china. This 'toy china', so valued by collectors today, is increasingly hard to find. Few of the manufacturers still produce miniature-size china, so antique dealers specializing in this field find their tiny cups and saucers, jugs, coffee and tea pots in great demand. One such dealer, Gary Sirett, sells these types of miniature china on Saturdays in Portobello Road, home of London's vast antiques market. The shelves in his shop windows display row upon row of tiny cups (1 Inch high) with their saucers. Like most early English toy china, these pieces are not quite as small as 1 " scale. Why, then, were they made? Were they samples for travelling salesmen to carry? Or, were they perhaps used by young girls playing with dolls at pretend tea parties? The curator of the Spode Museum, at the factory in Stoke-on-Trent in the northwest of England, believes that these pieces, so treasured by today's collectors, always were intended for collectors to display in cabinets. With the high demand and limited availability of fine English miniature china, where do dealers like Gary find this china that brings him prices ranging from £20 to £1,200 ($32 to $1,900)? While he regularly travels to the United States on buying trips to bring back previously exported English miniatures, sometimes he is still lucky back home in England. Recently Gary had a call from an English collector who was moving and wanted to sell his collection. This rather fortuitous collection turned out to contain 250 superb pieces of antique miniature china collected over many years. While dealers like Gary are constantly searching for more examples of original miniature china, other people like Karen Griffiths are hard at work producing dollhouse-scale china based on the early designs. Karen and her partner, Peter Armstrong, run Stokesay Ware of London. Their dollhouse range of miniature china includes dinner services in fine bone china, vases and decorative plates, kitchenware in terra-cotta, stoneware and white earthenware and a bedroom service including jug with basin, foot bath, bidet and potty (an essential item prior to the invention of flushing toilets). |
 SPODE DEJEUNER Paris Toy China on a tray are pieces treasured by today's collectors. Larger than dollhouse scale, they were originally intended for display. |
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Content, design & graphics copyright © Karen Griffiths 2000 |
