{HISTORY}

Officially the oldest set of dishes to ever come to the shop thus far, this beautiful trio of antique large-rimmed soup bowls was made by Job Meigh & Son in Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent, England between 1820-1830. Spectacular in design and detail, this trio is beautiful in all ways with an aged aesthetic that instantly brings 200 years of authentic history to the kitchen.

Large like dinner plates with a scalloped edge, a shallow well, a wide shoulder, and thick earthenware composition, they feature the Vintage pattern which includes a pastoral setting and imagery of fruit, florals, trees, architecture, people, garden beds, a body of water, and lattice-work designs. 

A soft blueberry in color palette, with an equally beautiful floral backstamp, Job Meigh began manufacturing dishware in Stoke-on-Trent in 1812. Continued through generations of the family, the J. M. & S mark (Job Meigh & Son) was retired in 1834 after Job's son Charles Meigh took over control of the pottery and began using the C.M. mark on dishes. 

Two hundred years is a long time for a dish to be navigating the world. If you think about it in familial terms, if these three bowls were passed down through your family, they would have been in the household of eight generations before you. To put it another way, they would have originally belonged to your great-great-grandparents' great-great-grandparents’ grandparents.

They were made just 40 years after the Declaration of Independence was signed and in the same decade when Mary Shelley, Washington Irving, Lord Byron, William Wordsworth, Goethe, John Adams, and Beethoven were writing masterpieces that still resonate today. Since they were made in England, we don't know how long they lived there before they came to America, but it is amazing to think that someone could have been sitting at a dinner table enjoying a hot stew or a warm pumpkin soup from one of these bowls while also reading a hot-off-the-press copy of Washington Irving's The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, which was published in both the US and England in 1820.  Perhaps, that soup or stew lover could have been Washington Irving himself.

As is the case with any antique dish precariously traveling the long road of history, these bowls could have been a part of anyone's household, famous or otherwise. When separated from other pieces in a collection, storytelling for individual heirlooms often gets lost over time. That bit of mystery opens up a wonderful avenue for day dreaming about who owned these beautiful dishes and when and where. These bowls offer two centuries of possibility in that department. 

Now very hard to find today, these bowls are gorgeous examples of early 19th-century English dishware that was, and still is, prized for its beauty and its craftsmanship. 

{SPECIAL FEATURES}

• Matching set of three
• Hard to find 
• Colors include pale blue, soft white, and blueberry
• Each bowl is stamped with the maker's mark and pattern name and the number 48 impressed on one bowl (possibly a manufacturing code) 

{CONDITION}

In lovely antique condition, these bowls contain no cracks and no significant chips. They are very clean and bright with a shiny glaze and crisp, clear transferware designs.  All bowls contain light crazing. One bowl contains a few spots of very light staining in the shoulder area. Each bowl contains a few flaked areas where the transferware has chipped away. All of these flaked areas are very small in size (about 1/16th in diameter) and very hard to see due to the overall pattern. One bowl contains two small chip flakes at the rim, each measuring under 1/4" inch in length. That same bowl also contains two chips on the foot ring on the back of the bowl, each measuring under 1/2' inch in length. Please see photos.

{SIZE}

Each bowl measures 10.25" inches in diameter and weighs between 1.5 and 1.10 lbs. Together, this set weighs 4.5 lbs