

Etruscan elegance
To me, nothing is as uplifting as spending time around a beautiful table with friends and loved ones... well today I have a really gorgeous table for you. This fantastic set of dessert plates and dishes was made by Derby between about 1815 and 1820 and it was made in the neo-classical style. This style was inspired by the excavations of the Classical and pre-Classical treasures in southern Europe. This particular pattern looks very much like the gracious Etruscan style with


Summer Sale!
Don't we all love a good sale? To celebrate the summer solstice and to clear my shelves we are putting on a huge Summer Sale - FOR 3 DAYS ONLY. All items will be 30% off - 3 DAYS ONLY 165 items on sale! Sale starts Saturday 18 June 0:00am and finishes Monday 20 June 11:59PM BST And why clear my shelves? We have some exciting plans for this year so creating some space both on my shelves and in my head will help those plans along. So FOR 3 DAYS ONLY you can get those items you'


Cooke's flowers
The Coalport factory made a huge variety of styles and items, but one thing they really excelled at was flower paintings. Thanks to John Rose, the founder of the factory, who patiently cultivated a large team of exceptionally talented painters, the flower painting tradition at Coalport became very strong and it was therefore always an attractive factory to work for - as an artist you could be sure there would be plenty of interesting work. One of the best painters was William


The other Josiah
Last month, in my column in Homes & Antiques, we looked at the genius of Josiah Wedgwood, the modest potter who transformed Staffordshire. This month we look at his contemporary and namesake: Josiah Spode, whose son was also called Josiah. If you read this blog you will know about Spode, one of the greatest potters of the 19th and 20th Centuries. The story of how this factory came into being is very interesting, as is the time this took place in; the Industrial Revolution gav