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Spongeware antique plates:the history
A 19th (mainly) century pottery decorated with a stamped design of flowers or shapes. Part of the design may be hand painted or there may be bands of stippled color that create a rainbow effect.
On closer inspection you notice that the stamped design is unevenly spaced and a bit blurry, there are color smudges or a smeared design. What you are looking at is spatterware or spongeware, which ever you choose to call it.
In the prolific factories of early Industrial-era England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales and france the practice flourished.
First it is necessary to clear up the confusion over the name(spongeware or spatterware). According to Henry Kelly and Arnold and Dorothy Kowalsky authors of the book Spongeware 1835-1935 "The word spatterware became associated with spongeware in the U.S.A. and this somehow stuck." So, if you are shopping in the U.S. it most likely will be referred to as spatterware, and pieces in the U.K will probably be classified as spongeware. But we are all talking about the same thing.
As for its history, spatterware/spongeware had humble beginnings. In the 19th Century, potteries in Glasgow, Scotland began producing a utilitarian ware for consumers of limited means. The pieces were successful and soon production spread to Staffordshire, England, and to other countries in Europe and eventually the U.S.. The pieces were rarely marked. Most of the goods were produced for export, with the U.S. being one of the biggest markets. The pottery was most popular in the Mid Atlantic region of the Country, particularly with the Pennsylvania Germans.
Spatterware/spongware was decorated using one or a combination of four methods:
*Hand painting or brushstroke decoration was done by the most skilled of the unskilled.
*Spattering was the application of color by blowing a powder onto the body using a pipe. This was expensive and required skill. So the look was achieved by patting on the color with an ordinary sponge.
*Dabbing was applying color and pattern using an ordinary sponge.
*Stick spatter or sponge printing involved stamping a pattern using a piece of cut sponge on a stick.
The most common colors were blue, red and various shades of green. In Scotland purple and brown became popular. Yellow, pink and other shades were introduced, but were not as popular. Black also became a common color.
The simple pottery that resulted from these methods remained popular for over 100 years. Today many collectors consider the pieces folk art. What was originally produced as inexpensive wares now can command high prices. Pieces start at about 100 euro and go up to thousands.
Much of what we know about this pottery today is a result of educated guesswork. The period's potters apparently were too busy churning out products to mark their spongeware or to record their decorating in explicit detail.
Today the most pursued sponged wares are those made in England and Scotland from about 1830 to 1880, when increased mechanization and more efficient methods of transfer printing all but eliminated the hand-decorating of everyday ceramics.
Spongeware of all types is becoming increasingly difficult to find and costly to acquire.
Collecting gained momentum, and in the past 15 years, spongeware has begun to disappear from the marketplace.
