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Podcast: EMPIRE LINES
Episode: Standard Willow Ceramic Plate, Josiah Spode (1800-1820)
Description: Dr. Tim Murray smashes imperial stereotypes of Asia through tastes and trades, in a 19th century Standard Willow Ceramic Plate from Josiah Spode's Staffordshire pottery.
Adorning dinner tables across the world, Josiah Spode's Chinese-inspired ‘Standard Willow’ rapidly became the world's most popular ceramic pattern. Produced in Staffordshire from 1790, its blue-and-white pines and pagodas speak to Asia's ascendant economic and cultural status - and imperial European efforts to imitate and overtake China in the 19th century. Excavated from former settler societies as far as Australia, such tea sets are testament to the mutual expansion of the British Empire and...