Monday, July 16, 2007

Courting Couple Platter with the Backstamp of the Atlas-Globe China Company


This piece of dinnerware with its charming and colorful decoration is a good jumping off place for a bit about early dinner ware factories in eastern Ohio. Cambridge, Ohio is due east of Columbus and close to Zanesville. Niles Ohio is northeast of Cambridge. by a good hundred miles. The Globe China Company was located in Cambridge. Niles was the home of the Atlas China Company. According to the American Ceramic Society Bulletin (1946) these two companies on January 1, 1927 merged to form the Atlas-Globe China Company. It continued in operation until about the mid 1930's under that name. The Atlas China company had previously been known as the Bradshaw China Company of Niles, Ohio and briefly as Crescent China. Approximately 1934 all of the potteries connected here were purchased by Universal Potteries.

The edge of the platter is embossed with scenes of Dutch life. There's some discoloration from use that could probably be diminished with soaking in 30% peroxide. However, I happen to like it the way it is. It looks like it has some personality. This blank is known as Old Holland Ware. It was used with other decals, most of them floral. I am not sure of the name of the decal used on this platter although I like it a lot-- the bright colors with the black make it seem lively.

I asked for some help on the Pottery and glass forum on eBay and a helpful poster discovered on Replacements.com, a similar Universal Potteries pattern that was described as a Dancing Couple. There was a dinner plate displayed that had a couple in 18th century clothing dancing. I don't know at this point if this was a set that had a number of different decals on varying pieces or if this was an entirely different set. I do know that the colors on the Dancing Couple plate were more garish. There was a smudgy looking red ring where this platter has a black one. Help from another user (Paddywhisky) provided the information that the decal was called Courting Couple, which seems to be closer to a description of what is going on in the picture.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Did you find more on this print