tableware Tableware is any dish or dishware used for setting a table, serving food, and dining. It includes cutlery, glassware, serving dishes, and other items for practical as well as decorative purposes. The quality, nature, variety and number of o ...

the Osier pattern is a moulded basket-weave pattern in delicate

relief Relief is a sculptural method in which the sculpted pieces are bonded to a solid background of the same material. The term '' relief'' is from the Latin verb ''relevo'', to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is to give the impression that th ...

used round the borders of

porcelain Porcelain () is a ceramic material made by heating substances, generally including materials such as kaolinite, in a kiln to temperatures between . The strength and translucence of porcelain, relative to other types of pottery, arises main ...

plates and other pieces of flatware. It originated in Germany in the 1730s on

Meissen porcelain Meissen porcelain or Meissen china was the first European hard-paste porcelain. Early experiments were done in 1708 by Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus. After his death that October, Johann Friedrich Böttger continued von Tschirnhaus's work an ...

, and was later often imitated by other producers. It is presumed to have been devised by

Johann Joachim Kaendler Johann, typically a male given name, is the German form of ''Iohannes'', which is the Latin form of the Greek name ''Iōánnēs'' (), itself derived from Hebrew name '' Yochanan'' () in turn from its extended form (), meaning "Yahweh is Gracious" ...

, the celebrated head modeller at Meissen. The name comes from ''

Salix viminalis ''Salix viminalis'', the basket willow, common osier or osier, is a species of willow native to Europe, Western Asia, and the Himalayas.Meikle, R. D. (1984). ''Willows and Poplars of Great Britain and Ireland''. BSBI Handbook No. 4. .Rushforth, K ...

'', or the common osier (''ozier'' in German), a

Eurasia Eurasia (, ) is the largest continental area on Earth, comprising all of Europe and Asia. Primarily in the Northern and Eastern Hemispheres, it spans from the British Isles and the Iberian Peninsula in the west to the Japanese archipelago ...

n species of

willow Willows, also called sallows and osiers, from the genus ''Salix'', comprise around 400 speciesMabberley, D.J. 1997. The Plant Book, Cambridge University Press #2: Cambridge. of typically deciduous trees and shrubs, found primarily on moist so ...

, whose thin, flexible, shoots or

withies A withy or withe (also willow and osier) is a strong flexible willow stem, typically used in thatching, basketmaking, gardening and for constructing woven wattle hurdles.

were and are much used for various types of wickerwork, usually encouraged by

coppicing Coppicing is a traditional method of woodland management which exploits the capacity of many species of trees to put out new shoots from their stump or roots if cut down. In a coppiced wood, which is called a copse, young tree stems are repeate ...

the plants. Such relief backgrounds were a speciality of Meissen under Kändler, as in the "Dulong border" (from 1743) with a rather neoclassical plant-scroll pattern, and, most spectacular of all, the decoration of the famous Swan Service, where each plate or other piece of flatware has a delicate background with radiating bands based on a scallop shell, against which there is in the central well a pair of swans on the water amid

bullrush Bulrush is a vernacular name for several large wetland grass-like plants *Sedge family ( Cyperaceae): **''Cyperus'' **''Scirpus'' **'' Blysmus'' **'' Bolboschoenus'' **''Scirpoides'' **'' Isolepis'' **''Schoenoplectus'' **''Trichophorum'' *Typha ...

es, and a crane in the air, descending to join another on the left. The standing crane grasps a fish in his beak, and the head of another fish can be seen in the water beneath the swan on the right. In fact Meissen used three versions of the osier borders, with several minor variations between different moulds. The first type, produced from about 1732, and widely used in a dinner service for Count Alexander Joseph Sulkowski of about 1735, is called the "''ordinar ozier''" ("ordinary osier") or Sulkowski type. It has small groups of shoots diagonal to the edge of the plate, forming squares with the adjacent groups at right angles. These are all set between straight vertical bands at regular intervals. The inner and outer boundaries of the osier decoration may be marked by striated bands, also imitating woven basketwork. Not long after, a version was introduced with finer shoots, all going in the same direction parallel with the edge of the plate, and not always having the vertical strips, which as before are straight. After the final version was introduced in 1742, this second one was known as the "Altozier" or "old ozier", and the third one as the "Neuozier" or "new osier". The ''Neuozier'' pattern was a "more

rococo Rococo (, also ), less commonly Roccoco or Late Baroque, is an exceptionally ornamental and theatrical style of architecture, art and decoration which combines asymmetry, scrolling curves, gilding, white and pastel colours, sculpted moulding, ...

version with spiral ribs". In this type the vertical strips or ribs curve into a sort of "S" shape, are given more emphasis, and often come into the central well of the plate, projecting beyond the basket-weave, which may cover only about half of the raised border of the plate. The inner boundary of the decoration is marked by a raised ridge.Coutts, 95
has a diagram from a catalogue showing the three types. Both old and new types continued to be produced, up to the present day. The central well of the plate is left plain, except in the new type, and many larger pieces that are not flat (cups, pots and

tureen A tureen is a serving dish for foods such as soups or stews, often shaped as a broad, deep, oval vessel with fixed handles and a low domed cover with a knob or handle. Over the centuries, tureens have appeared in many different forms: round, re ...

s for example) lack the relief pattern. File:Lao cuisine ricebasket.jpg, Lao ricebasket; the sort of weave imitated in the first "Sulkowski" type File:Wickerwork fence and road past Old Hall Farm - geograph.org.uk - 529110.jpg, Wicker fence with the sort of weave imitated in the "old osier" pattern File:Plate with Green Landscape, c. 1778, Frankenthal, hard-paste porcelain, coloured enamels - Gardiner Museum, Toronto - DSC00941.JPG, Frankenthal porcelain imitation of the "old osier" pattern, with minimal vertical bands File:Herend-China.jpg, Herend porcelain set with the osier pattern.

Notes

References

*Coutts, Howard, ''The Art of Ceramics: European Ceramic Design, 1500–1830'', 2001, Yale University Press, , 9780300083873
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*Ostrowski, Jan K, DaCosta Kaufmann, Thomas, ''Land of the Winged Horsemen: Art in Poland, 1572–1764'', 1999, Yale University Press, , 9780300079180
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*"Wrightsman" (no author given), ''The Wrightsman Collection. Vols. 3 and 4, Furniture, Snuffboxes, Silver, Bookbindings, Porcelain'', 1970, Metropolitan Museum of Art, {{ISBN, 0870990101, 9780870990106
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German porcelain Individual patterns of tableware Meissen porcelain