Chapter C: The Willow Pattern And Other Important Blue China Series—Story Of The Willow Pattern

THE Willow Pattern has been perhaps more popular and more universally familiar ever since the first use of the color blue in English potteries than any other design put upon tableware, but in spite of this fact a surprising amount of ignorance or of half-knowledge concerning it still persists. The Chinese story which inspired the English potter-apprentice Thomas Minton, about the year 1780, to compose and engrave the design to illustrate it may best be given in the form of one of the many delightful bits of verse which formerly were taught to children along with their nursery rhymes:

"So she tells me a legend centuries old
Of a Mandarin rich in lands and gold,
Of Koong-Shee fair and Chang the good,
Who loved each other as lovers should.
How they hid in the gardener's hut awhile,
Then fled away to the beautiful isle.
Though a cruel father pursued them there,
And would have killed the hopeless pair,
But kindly power, by pity stirred,
Changed each into a beautiful bird.

Here is the orange tree where they talked,
Here they are running away,
And over all at the top you see
The birds making love alway."

The large pagoda at the right of the design, as reproduced from an old platter, is the palace of the wealthy Mandarin, while upon the terrace stands the summer house where Koong-Shee, the lovely daughter of the Mandarin, was kept a prisoner in order that she might be concealed from Chang, her father's secretary, who loved her and whom she wished to marry. But, as the story runs in "Old China," Chang was poor and the Mandarin had selected a wealthy suitor for his daughter's hand. From her chamber in the prison the unhappy maiden watched the willow tree blossom while yet the peach tree was only in bud, and she wrote verses in which she voiced the hope that before the peach blossoms appeared, she might be free. Chang, however, found means to communicate with Koong-Shee, once by sending a note in a tiny cocoanut shell, which by the aid of a small sail made its way to the captive maiden. Koong-Shee replied by scratching on an ivory tablet the challenge, "Do not wise husbandmen gather the fruits they fear will be stolen?" and, putting the tablet in the boat, she sent it back to her lover.

Chang received the message, entered the Mandarin's garden in spite of the barricades which had been erected to keep him away, and eloped with Koong-Shee. The father gave chase, and there on the bridge the three may be seen—Chang carrying a box of jewels, Koong-Shee with a distaff in her hand, and the angry Mandarin with a whip. The lovers escaped, however, entered the little boat, and sailed away to Chang's house on the island, where they lived happily until the rejected suitor discovered them and burned their home. Then, from out the ashes of Chang and Koong-Shee, who perished in their bamboo grove, there arose two spirits in the form of white doves—the lovers, who forever hover over the scenes of their earthly happiness.

Nearly all of the Staffordshire potters at one time or another made use of the Willow Pattern, or of variants of it. Some of the English designs, erroneously called Willow, have but two men on the bridge, or one man, or they have no boat or birds, being in reality merely arrangements of oriental motifs—trees, pagodas, fences, bridges, etc.—to suit the fancy of individual potters. The borders, too, vary with the pattern in the center, the butterfly, Joo-e dagger, fish-roe, fret, etc., etc., with their own adaptations, offering a separate subject for speculation and identification. The scope of this volume, however, forbids an extended review of this very interesting study of Oriental influence upon the early ceramic art of Europe.

Doctor Syntax Designs

A very interesting series of dark blue prints on pottery was published by James Clews, after the original designs of the English caricaturist T. Rowlandson. Contrary to the usual method of procedure, rhymes were composed to fit the pictures, the combined product becoming very popular in London. William Combe, an eccentric author who was at the time an inmate of a debtors' prison, pinned the cartoons upon the wall of his cell and penned the verses for them. Blue pottery manufacture being at this time at its height in Staffordshire, the well-known Doctor Syntax was made to cater to the sales of pictured tableware in America. The story goes that the learned Doctor, a poorly paid curate of a small English town, sets out upon his gray mare Grizzle on a "Tour in Search of the Picturesque." In his farewell to his wife Dolly, he explains his purpose:

"You charm my heart; you quite delight it;
I'll make a tour — and then I'll write it,
You well know what my pen can do,
And I'll employ my pencil too;
I'll ride and write, and sketch and print,
And thus create a real mint;
I'll prose it here, I'll verse it there,
And picturesque it everywhere."

Then, as the print here presented pictures:

"At length the ling'ring moment came
That gave the dawn of wealth and fame.
Incurious Ralph, exact at four,
Led Grizzle, saddled, to the door,
And soon, with more than common state,
The Doctor stood before the gate.
Behind him was his faithful wife:
'One more embrace, my dearest life;'
Then his gray palfrey he bestrode,
And gave a nod and off he rode.
'Good luck! Good luck!' she loudly cried,
'Vale! O Vale!' he replied."

According to the illustrated rhymes, a long series of adventures await the traveler—he is attacked by ruffians and tied to a tree; he is rescued by two women who appear on "trotting palfreys"; he loses Grizzle, finding him at last with cropped ears and tail, as he thereafter appears in the illustrations; he visits Oxford, loses his money at races, etc., etc. Finally, he reaches London and arranges with a bookseller for the publishing of his Tour. Then, having created his "mint," he returns to Dolly, who, learning of his success:

" . . . . started up in joy's alarms
And clasped the Doctor in her arms."

After several years of happiness, Dolly dies. Doctor Syntax then goes upon a "Tour in Search of Consolation," accompanied by his valet Pat. So successful was this supplementary series that it was quickly followed by a third " Tour in Search of a Wife," wherein after many experiences the sorrowing Doctor secures a mate the equal of his lamented Dolly. His end is an anticlimax—he tumbles into a pond, takes a cold, and dies. A stone is raised to his memory . . .

"And, as the sculpture meets the eye,
'Alas, poor Syntax!' with a sigh,

Is read by every passer by;
And wakes the pensive thought, sincere,
Forever sad! . . . forever dear!"

At least 30 of these prints have been found upon pieces of tableware, the ceramic specimens at the present day almost equaling in value the wonderful old editions of the poem illustrated with the colored engravings.

Don Quixote Designs

A set of at least 21 excellent blue-china prints have been found in this country, reproduced from the engravings of the English artist Robert Smirke, illustrating the adventures of Don Quixote de la Mancha. These also come from the Clews pottery works, and are framed in a handsome deep border composed of a widespreading six-scalloped star within the rounded points of which flowers and birds appear.

Transplanted from the barren, sun-scorched hills and plains of their native southland, and set in fresh English landscapes, amid English flowers and trees and English castles, beneath overclouded English skies, may be found our familiar Spanish friends—the Knight of the Rueful Countenance, the Peasant Maid, Sancho Panza and Teresa his spouse, Rozinante (whose sides "stuck out like the corners of a Spanish real") and Dapple, the Priest, the Barber, the Shepherd boy, the Duke and Duchess, and the alluring Shepherdesses of the Wood. The "enchanted bark" here floats upon a shaded English stream; the wild boar roams a British forest; and the famous windmills sweep their arms through English skies.

Like Doctor Syntax, Don Quixote adventures three times into the world of experience, but, in place of seeking his own personal gain, the dear old Spanish knight has won his way into the hearts of succeeding generations through his generous efforts to teach the ridiculousness of sham and the worth of honesty. The most widely known incident in his travels through an unsympathetic world is that which is pictured in the accompanying illustration— "The Attack Upon the Windmills." Here may be seen Don Quixote and his steed Rozinante prone upon the ground, decidedly worsted in their encounter with the supposed giants of the plain. Coming to their rescue is Sancho Panza, his squire, who accompanies his knight and shares many of his experiences. Sancho's mount is a beloved ass named Dapple, who appears in a number of the pictures. But the knight's chosen lady, the peerless Dulcinea del Toboso, for whose favor all is attempted, remains throughout the series of illustrations, as throughout Cervantes' fascinating pages, a creature of the imagination only, a luring phantom to her deluded lover.

The Wilkie Series

The art of the painter as well as that of the caricaturist and of the illustrator contributed to the decoration of early Staffordshire pottery, the work of no less an artist than Sir David Wilkie being put to that humble use, and thereby introduced into American homes. Seven of Wilkie's best known canvases were reproduced in the pot-works of the enterprising James Clews, all in rich deep blue prints of excellent workmanship. The subjects chosen by the potters are the lowly scenes of country life which the "raw, tall, pale, queer Scotchman" originally loved to observe, and which he depicted in the precise and sober manner of Teniers and of Rembrandt, the two artists whom he at first followed. They exhibit the homely pastimes and customs of the friends and neighbors with whom Wilkie passed his early years, and in them one may learn not a little of the popular English tastes of that day. Later on, after he had made London his home, and after his genius, like Goethe's, had ripened under the influence of the life and art of Italy and Spain, the subjects of his brush became broader in scope, and his manner of expression richer and more free.

The painting which is here presented is entitled, "The Escape of the Mouse." In it may be seen an excited family group of humble station in life, in pursuit of the little intruder who has taken refuge under the chair of the young woman at the spinning wheel. She has turned to watch the dog who heads the chase. One brother pokes under the chair with a broom, while another stands laughing at the spectacle. The mother is seen looking in at the partly opened door. "The Escape of the Mouse" was the artist's diploma picture upon his entrance into the Royal Academy in the year 1811, and upon the walls of that Institution it may still be seen.

(From The Blue-China Book by Ada Walker Camehl, 1916.)