Antiques & Collecting: Ironstone ceramics

If you’re familiar with 19th-century ceramics, you probably know about ironstone. It was first made by English potter Miles Mason, who sold Chinese export porcelain and decided to make his own replacements for broken dishes.

To make these replacements, he created a ceramic using slag from processing iron, which his son patented as ironstone in 1813. Heavy, durable and hard to chip, it was clearly different from porcelain, but quickly became a favorite for tableware.

Many other potteries began making ironstone, especially in the Staffordshire district of England. Albion Pottery, also known as Bourne & Leigh, active from about 1892 to 1941, was one of them.

The platter shown here, which sold for $95 at DuMouchelles, is an example of their ironstone. The pattern’s name, “Chinese,” evokes Mason’s original intention of making dishes to use with Chinese porcelain. Many popular ironstone patterns imitated East Asian designs.

This Albion Pottery platter includes a landscape with buildings and a bridge with a figure, reminiscent of Nanking china or the design that inspired the famous Blue Willow pattern. A close look at the platter’s border shows geometric patterns like the ones found on Chinese porcelain.

I have a child’s chair shaped like a hand-carved bear cub that looks like a Black Forest piece but I’m not sure. Can you tell me, and what it is worth? How old, too?

Black Forest furniture was first made in the late 1800s. Several wood carving schools were established in Switzerland and southern Germany by then.

Wooden furniture and figurines carved into the shapes of local animals like deer, bears and wolves were popular souvenirs. Walnut and linden woods were frequently used.

Carving shops were often run by families. One of the most famous was the Trauffer family of Switzerland. Three generations of Trauffers made Black Forest furniture from the 1880s to the 1950s. Check your chair for a maker’s signature.

Black Forest furniture production declined by the 1960s because it was going out of fashion. However, it came back into fashion in the 1980s; since then, reproduction pieces have been made outside Germany and Switzerland.

Authentic Black Forest furniture from about 1880 to 1950 sells for high prices. Pieces with bears have sold for about $300 to over $3,000 at recent auctions.

Pieces with large animal figures as part of the structure, like a table that appears to be held up by its bear-shaped supports or chairs like yours where the bear makes up the chair’s back, seat and arms, tend to sell for more.

Bears are the most common animal seen in Black Forest furniture, so pieces that feature other animals can get even higher prices.

Tip: To whiten stained ironstone, soak it, completely submerged, for a week. Then heat it in a preheated electric oven at 250 degrees for 20 minutes.

Current Prices

Opaline, vase, blue bands, gilt trim, multicolor flowers around shoulder, flared neck, slightly flared base, 9 inches, pair, $100.

Sports, snooker, scoreboard, mahogany, walnut, shaped top, gilt urn finial, three mirrors, sliding markers, Victorian, 27 1/2 x 38 inches, $255.

Advertising, cabinet, Dr. B.J. Kendall’s, patent medicines, veterinary, wood, glass door, two interior shelves, 38 x 18 inches, $1,030.