Carlton Ware Apple Blossom dish

The backstamp of this dish reveals that it is from an Australian-designed series of Carlton Ware, though made in England.    The back of the dish has an impressed number  of 1614 which reveals that the dish was made between 1938 and 1939.  The embossed pattern is Apple Blossom. 

This backstamp can be found on pieces manufactured between 1935 and 1961.  It is the impressed number that narrows the time frame of this piece to 1938-39.

I found this dish in a local boutique.

Marutomo Ware dish

This is fun!

This little dish is 16 x 11 cm.  It is Marutomo Ware, made in Japan.  I haven't found a website about this particular firm, but there are lots of items offered on eBay, and from the dates given there I think this would date from the 1930s.

This type of porcelain is referred to as Majolica, featuring bright, coloured glazes and modelled in relief.  Collecting Majolica pottery gives a description of how it was made, and this system is probably why the glaze crazes so readily.  This little dish is heavily crazed. When I took it out of the cupboard there was a lot of rusty deposits in the cracks - which is why we have to wash our china regularly in soapy water, I guess.  

Would it be a sweet dish?  It is about the size of a butter dish.

This little dish came out of my grandmother Annie Frost's crystal cabinet.  I've always thought of the bird being a rather Japanese-looking kookaburra - but perhaps it is a Japanese bird, I'm not sure.  I thought the tree on which is is perched had gumnuts on it, which is why I was thinking kookaburra.