Australian decorated bright white porcelain, gilded entirely in 22 Ct Gold (according to the sticker attached to the teapot from the same set) 22 Ct Gold is good quality, despite the small percentage of alloys that exist in its mixture (22K gold is only 91.67% pure gold) because these alloys are essential to create strength and hardness.
ST KILDA CHINA
If you are interested in the background to this porcelain ware, best of luck! Stories abound and with not much in the way of fact behind those stories but a couple of things are 'for sure'.
The bright white porcelain 'blank' was imported (un-decorated) possibly from Japan or some people even suggest, England. I personally think that the former is far more likely and I have seen this exact same design marked underneath as "Made In Japan" but not with a makers name. The important thing is that the porcelain is of a very high quality but it is NOT Australian made. Many Australian ceramic suppliers did this back in the 1960's ~ 1970's e.g Westminster and Avondale to name just a couple.
Funny enough, the demi cups (these will be offered separately) have Avondale as their backstamp, not St Kilda China, although the design is identical.
The gilding is also of high quality, the thickness is evenly distributed and not "spotty" I have no idea how the gilding was done but I couldn't imagine it was by hand due to the very large surface areas - perhaps some form of dipping was used. A clue could be underneath, I can just see a brown coloured liquid has been applied to the porcelain over which the gold has been applied. Perhaps this brown liquid is some sort of substrate which makes the gold coating more stable with the porcelain underneath! NOR on this one (No Idea Really)
These seem to be pretty durable too ... after approximately 40 years the gold remains stable and intact with no fade, flaking or other such horrors although I must admit (as mentioned above) we used these perhaps a half dozen times and then put them away - you need dark glasses when sitting near these, others probably would not agree but we considered these quite gaudy!
We had and still have quite a bit of English china and porcelain to find new homes for but like our paintings, there are some that are simply totally out of character (for us). In a moment of madness we bought these some years ago (we had the complete tea set set). Well it's a personal taste 'thing', we love Art Deco and nice well made and hand decorated chinaware's with beautiful English flowers but this type of china, covered in gold decoration was never really 'us' and after a couple of uses back in the 1970's, the coffee//teaset sat in the display cupboards for years never seeing the light of day!
This type of design is not for us but that's not to say someone else won't love them .... they are now seeking a new home!
I will be advertising the tea set 'piece by piece'
Here is the coffee//teapot .... ONLY
I can hear you!
It's so small and those demitasse cups, it must be a coffee pot! Well to be perfectly frank, we did use this set with coffee (European style) but the teapot is the give away - inside, where the spout joins the pot body near the base, are the small holes inside to allow the liquid to flow but hinder the tea leaves - I guess you could consider this as a dual purpose pot, coffee or tea!
DLAT Rating: 10/10 (Darling Look At This!)
ST KILDA FINE CHINA - Teapot//Coffee Pot
DESIGN: Entirely Gold gilded with no other decoration
Porcelain (Kaolin) blank body and lid has a 'twist' which enhances the light reflecting off the gold gilding.
Attention to detail too, the lid even has a very small 'breathing hole' to allow steam to escape - nice touch!
Circa 1960's ~ early 1970's
Australian porcelainware although it's heritage is questionable, see some thoughts about this above.
Dimensions: 190mm height (base to the top of the teapot lid 'button handle')
180mm wide (from handle to spout)
Weight: 150g
In our opinion this was always considered a small ~ medium teapot because it will hold only 700mL of tea or coffee comfortably but it is perfectly suitable for use with the demitasse cups from the set or around 3 'standard' cups of coffee or tea.
BACKSTAMP DETAILS:
All text is printed (not handwritten) in gold (leaf?)
ST KILDA (text follows an arc)
FINE CHINA
AUSTRALIA (text follows a reverse arc)
There is NO gilder's mark associated with the backstamp (just a couple of what appear to be accidental 'blobs' of gold which are not part of the backstamp)
OTHER IDENTIFICATION:
The teapot also has the original metallic gold label attached to the lid, this simply states
GUARANTEED
22 Ct GOLD
See photograph #4 (in closeup mode) to view this label
CONDITION:
Stunning, so much gold that the eyes hurt! Just don't drop it, only then will you realise it was porcelain (it will now be in little pieces all over the floor)
NO chips
NO cracks
NO wear noticed to the gold gilding (but see my notes below), even the handle (often an area of high wear). Actually this lack of wear to the gold coating is quite remarkable over such a large surface area and not one scratch at all. Believe me, I looked very closely and my only comment is that this is a devil to keep clean because every time you handle it the oils from your hand get left behind, requiring a 'polish up' with a very soft cloth!
NOTES: Actually to be brutally honest there are two little 'dimples' near the handle, very very small depressions filled with gold coating. This means those dimples were there at the time of manufacturing, the blank used was not perfect!
I also can see the ever-so-slight wear of the lid inner rim at the top of the pot in one spot (I think I can see a little bit of white from the porcelain underneath but not sure, it is extremely light wear (if any)
I spent a bit of time looking over our coffee//teapot and also rubbed it all over with a soft cloth so I could 'feel' any blemishes - none were felt at all. You see, with all that dazzling gold glaring at you, it is not that easy to spot any defects but i didn't detect anything untoward except for those commonted on immediately above.
NO damage to the decorative artwork - why? because there is no artwork as such, just gold gold gold!
I have now sealed this in clear cello to protect it from further handling and the environment - it will be carefully packed and shipped in this manner.
