We had (and still have) a lot of very nice English fine china and porcelain items from all of the well known and not so well known potteries, this piece falls into the later category.
CHELSON CHINA HISTORY:
The Chelson China works were located in Longton, funny enough on Chelson Street.
But going back in time a little, R. H. & S. L. Plant (known also for their trade name Tuscan) started in the 1900's using the name New Chelsea and often the backstamp had an anchor as part of the design. Fast forward to the early 1950's and the company was sold to Susie Cooper Pottery and the companies created as a result were New Chelsea China and also New Chelsea Porcelain. Trade names used on their products were CHELSON CHINA and NEW CHELSEA.
I believe this dish (we only have the one example of Chelson China) is from those latter years after the 1950's and in fact based on the lovely pastel Apricot flower design, white porcelain base material and quality of craftsmanship which is NOT hand painted, I am pretty sure this is an example from the 1970's ~ 1980's period.
DLAT Rating: 9/10 (Darling, Look At This!)
CHELSON CHINA - Dish
Made In England
White porcelain
Translucent, meaning if held to the light you can easily see the shadow of your fingers through the porcelain.
Transferware
Design: spray of beautiful pastel flowers with foliage, dominated by the Apricot petals but surrounded by smaller white flowers, even the foliage is very attractive. We bought this dish originally because of the dominant Apricot petal colouring, sure it is quite easy to find yellow, red, pink etc but Apricot is not so easy to come across - such a lovely gentle colour.
Small (pin dish size) 118mm diameter
Scalloped edges
Gold gilding applied around the outer rim.
Very clean bright white porcelain
COSMETIC CONDITION:
This dish is very clean
NO discolouration
NO cracks
NO chips
NO wear observed to the gold gilding
NO crazing
One small 'blemish' though - within the artwork between some foliage is a tiny little 'dot' which you can feel with your finger and it appears to be UNDER the glaze. I believe this is a manufacturing defect and not subsequent damage. I am being VERY picky here, this dot is barely noticeable!
Pastel colours are all very natural in appearance and "true to life" (although I do not know the name of these flowers!)
BACKSTAMP INFO:
Very simple backstamp design, no graphics, no crowns, no anchors etc
Blue print under the glaze
(Text arranged in a small circle)
CHELSEA CHINA
(Roman writing) J B P (Set diagonally within the circular text)
FINE BONE CHINA MADE IN ENGLAND
There are NO artist or gilder's marks at all - this leads me to believe the design is transferware (and looking closely at the artwork I cannot see any signs of brush work)
