A fine quality pink splash copper lustre ware bowl c1820-50 in good condition apart from one small chip on the rim (shown) and some crazing, commensurate with its age. Height 9cm / width 14cm. 
 
Planted with a Opti-Flor miniature phalaenopsis which is from their ‘natural collection’ meant to be grown without sticks to allow the plant to form its own shape , perfect for low table arrangements.
 
Lustreware was initially developed in Staffordshire, where Wedgwood developed a pink or gold lustre finish about 1805, which they sold as "Moonlight".  Sunderland lustreware came to the market around the same time as Staffordshire pottery and was more expensive and appealed to a slightly wealthier clientele.  Sunderland has become a term for the style, rather than a specific indication of origin and although it is named after the city of Sunderland,  as it was also produced in other areas throughout the North East, including Newcastle and North Shields, at a number of different pottery studios. 
 
This pottery is now very collectible according to House & Garden’s Jane Audus who named it the ‘Antique of the week: why Sunderland lustreware is a designer favourite’  in June 2022  “with their cheerfully casual pink glaze and intriguing transfers, Sunderland lustreware is a popular form of pottery to collect”. 
 
Sunderland Museum, which has one of the best displays of lustreware, tell us a little more about how the particular iridescent pink colour came to be: 'Sunderland potters used gold (copper), purple and silver lustre to decorate their pots. If gold lustre is applied to a brown surface, a copper colour results; if applied to a white background the lustre fires to a colour ranging from light pink to deep purple, depending on how thickly the lustre has been applied and the temperature of the firing.' A copper lustre might be made with powdered gold and a little tin dissolved in acid. The blotches often seen in the pink glaze, particularly on Sunderland lustreware, were created by spraying spirit of turpentine onto the wet lustre glaze, then doing a second firing. Due to the exciting and unpredictable nature of these glazes, and the inexact copying of transfer prints that happened, no two pieces of Sunderland lustreware are exactly the same.