Canadian-made wares from St. Johns had to compete not only with British imports but also with inexpensive porcelain from the Continent. The plate on the left was made at the St. Johns Stone Chinaware Co. (illustration 16); the one on the right is French porcelain. Both pieces are decorated with the moss rose. A favourite flower of the Victorians, it grew in their gardens and appeared as decoration on tablewares,textiles, wallpaper, and greeting cards.
The superficial similarity of the stone china and porcelain was not accidental. Since continental porcelain was slightly grayish in tone, British potters, whose wares were the models for St. Johns, intentionally produced ironstone of a similar tint. This tactic was adopted in order to compete with the threat posed by cheap continental porcelain to Britain's earthenware as well as her porcelain makers in the second half of the nineteenth century. In Canada, there were increasing sales of continental porcelain from the end of the 1840s.
Courtesy: National Museum of Man, National Museums of Canada
