Vintage Bargeware Enamel Plate in Red with Hand Painted Roses

Roses and daisies on pillar box red: this enamel plate is painted in the traditional style of the English canals, with four full blown roses in pink, blush and buttercup yellow clustered at the centre and a ring of white daisies with blue and yellow hearts dancing round the rim between glossy green leaves. Every petal is a single confident brushstroke, which is exactly how the canal painters were taught to work.

Depth: 2cm (0.8in)
Diameter: 24cm (9.4in)

Roses and castles painting appeared on narrowboats in the nineteenth century, when families living aboard decorated their cabins, water cans and dipper ladles with bright flowers to make a small space feel like home. The style became a symbol of canal life and is still kept going by boat painters today. This plate is painted on an enamelled metal ground with a crisp black rim, a classic canal ware form, and belongs to the later twentieth century revival of the craft.

It measures 24cm across and 2cm deep. The red ground is bright and glossy, and there are a few small chips to the painted roses at the centre, which you can see in the close up photographs. To our eyes they show a plate that has been enjoyed rather than spoil the overall effect.

Hang it on a kitchen wall in a cluster with other painted plates, or prop it on a dresser shelf where its red will lift a run of blue and white china. It makes a cheerful catchall for keys on a hall table or a pretty dish for a big pearly shell, as we have it here, and come Christmas it looks wonderful piled with clementines. A lovely present for anyone who has ever spent a holiday pottering along the canals on a narrowboat.