Spring flowers

It is spring here in this part of the world! And after a long winter of perpetual greyness, it is an important, if not life saving season for us 🌞. This year, it is strange because we are all limited in our movements - but every minute spent outside is guaranteed to lift you up because of the wonderful flowers everywhere. Which brings me to the topic of this week: the wonderful flowers painted by Thomas Dixon.

I never knew about Thomas Dixon until I was lucky enough to be able to purchase a large collection of Coalport plates, which I have slowly been working my way through in the last year or so. Again and again I came across a style that became familiar, and that I started to be able to document here and there; and then I became able to identify other items based on that. It is the style of hand painted flowers by Thomas Dixon.

Dixon worked at Coalport from 1821 to 1875 - basically his whole life. As was common in those days, he had many family members working with him. Artistic talent of course often runs through the family and children would be apprenticed at a young age, in order to be trained to become experts at their skill. The Dixons were all painters and gilders, but Thomas Dixon in particular became a famous and valued painter of flowers at Coalport, painting countless tea, dinner and dessert services.

Some painters went through a long artistic development throughout their lives, like John Randall whom I have written about before - but Dixon did one thing, and did it really well: tight, slightly crowded bouquets of abundant summer flowers. The flowers are always recognisable as proper English garden flowers and they have a wonderful "wet" feeling, as if they were just picked and still have some dew on them. Perhaps a little spider will run out if you look long enough! 🕷

I realised I currently have a whole collection of Thomas Dixon plates (and a couple of nice serving dishes on the way, which will be added soon), so have a look in the shop! You can find them here.

You can see all my plates here. If you always want to see the latest additions, follow me on Instagram... I post pictures and a story every single day 🌸🕷🌹

Happy weekend, pick some fresh flowers - and #stayathome ! 🏡