In the 1930s Carlton Ware produced the embossed ware range. I think it is probably fair to say that this range is like Marmite to some people and particularly to lovers of Carlton Ware's fabulous Art Deco lustre ware. However everything has its place and although I have never been very enthusiastic about most of the embossed ware I absolutely love the "Yellow Buttercup" pattern. If my memory serves me correctly I found my first piece, a large plate, at a wonderful antique shop in Zimbabwe in the early 1990s together with an embossed ware flat dish in the form of a slice of lemon and a cruet set in anenome. As always happens I then sort out Yellow Buttercup wherever I went rejecting some great lustre ware pieces along the way! My collection was reduced somewhat by a curious cat but when we left Botswana in 2006 what remained of it was carefully wrapped up and put into a box where it stayed until yesterday.
Unwrapping and rediscovering each piece gave me the same joy as the day I bought it. What is it about "Yellow Buttercup" that has this effect on me? It can't be the buttercup pattern because the rarer Pink Buttercup leaves me "cold". My next favourite "Yellow Water Lily" makes me smile but Yellow Buttercup makes me grin - it's fun, it's warm, it's happy and sometimes I think that the people who designed and produced it at Carlton Ware must have felt the same because to borrow Mo's words "I'm feeling the love"!
Anyway enough of this self indulgence! I have decided to sell some of my collection so I have put a few pieces together to make a Breakfast for Two set - see the attached picture. I do have a teapot but I have not included it as it does not have a lid. It was lidless when I bought it and I always hoped to find one somewhere but of course I never did.
They will all be on the website very soon together with a couple of other pieces. I hope they make you grin and that you discover or re-discover the love for Yellow Buttercup.