The Italian pattern, also known as Blue Italian, was introduced by Spode in about 1816 and has been in continuous production ever since. It was immediately popular and remains a best seller today. Over the years it has been produced on a wide variety of shapes in earthenware, one catalogue from between the wars mentions over 700 pieces! In 1998 Blue Italian is still produced on a huge range of shapes - 58 tableware pieces, 10 cookware and 30 giftware. Dinnerwares were also produced on bone china until about 1976 and decorative wares until about 1986. Italian was also produced in black from about 1954 until about 1974 on decorative items. In 1962 a limited range of tableware was made in black with pattern number S3372.

Unlike many of the other classical scene patterns of the period, the origin of the view for the Italian pattern is not certain, the scene has puzzled collectors for many years. The Spode engravers derived many of their pictorial subjects from scenes which had appeared as prints. Publications of prints of scenes associated with the Grand Tour were the inspiration for many patterns produced at this time. Merigot's Views of Rome and Its Vicinity (published in 1796-98) was the source for several Spode patterns, including Tower and Castle, but none of these views has been associated with Italian.

Recently, Tilman Lichtenthaeler, a Spode collector and researcher, has carried out an architectural quest to trace the building types in an attempt to unravel the mystery of the source of the Italian scene. It seems that there is no one place in Italy that corresponds to all the features included in the picture. The scene is a composition made up of several elements. The ruin on the left, although architecturally incorrect, might have been based on the Great Bath at Tivoli, near Rome. The row of houses along the left bank of the river is similar those of the Latium area near Umbria, north of Rome. The castle in the distance is of a type which occurs only in Northern Italy in the regions of Piedmont and Lombardy.

The suggestion is that a travelling artist from Northern Europe made sketches of the scenes he encountered as he made his way through Italy. On his return home the sketches were combined into an attractive scene which, later, Spode used and chose to call The Italian Pattern. It is not possible to date this. There may even have been a print from a painting and then another painting taken from the print by a different artist. In 1989 the Spode Museum Trust purchased a late seventeenth century pen and wash drawing by an unknown artist. The rendering of the scene is very close to that of the Italian pattern and may well have been the original inspiration for the famous Spode design.

From its first introduction Italian was an immediate success. Remarkably it has retained its immense popularity for over 180 years. The reason for its tremendous appeal is difficult to place perhaps it is due to the unusual combination of the classical scene with the Chinese border, a direct copy of an Imari design on Chinese export porcelain dating from about 1735. This unusual and difficult combination of oriental and western designs works perfectly in the Italian pattern.

We are grateful to the researches of both Robert Copeland and Tilman Lichtenthaeler in producing this account of the Italian pattern.