Vintage Antique Blue Willow Pattern circa 1790 Paper Plates
Vintage Antique Blue Willow Pattern circa 1790 Paper Plate ... Vintage Antique Blue Willow Pattern circa 1790 Classic Paper Plate... The exact origin of this general design pattern is unknown. It is dated circa 1790 for when the earliest known general pattern was designed and produced in England using Chinese / Japanese Oriental motifs. Many china plate makers used the general pattern with slight variations. The design pattern comes with a legend story. The romantic fable Once there was a wealthy Mandarin, who had a beautiful daughter (Koong-se). She had fallen in love with her father's humble accounting assistant (Chang), angering her father. (It was inappropriate for them to marry due to their difference in social class.) He dismissed the young man and built a high fence around his house to keep the lovers apart. The Mandarin was planning for his daughter to marry a powerful Duke. The Duke arrived by boat to claim his bride, bearing a box of jewels as a gift. The wedding was to take place on the day the blossom fell from the willow tree. On the eve of the daughter's wedding to the Duke, the young accountant, disguised as a servant, slipped into the palace unnoticed. As the lovers escaped with the jewels, the alarm was raised. They ran over a bridge, chased by the Mandarin, whip in hand. They eventually escaped on the Duke's ship to the safety of a secluded island, where they lived happily for years. But one day, the Duke learned of their refuge. Hungry for revenge, he sent soldiers, who captured the lovers and put them to death. The gods, moved by their plight, transformed the lovers into a pair of doves. The old poem Two birds flying high, A Chinese vessel, sailing by. A bridge with three men, sometimes four, A willow tree, hanging o'er. A Chinese temple, there it stands, Built upon the river sands. An apple tree, with apples on, A crooked fence to end my song. My paternal grandmother Phyllis Talla Johnson Westerfield had blue eyes so she liked cobalt blue glass and blue willow dinnerware. I remember seeing her Blue Willow plates in her house in the 1950s 1960s when I was a little boy.
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