English Staffordshire Copeland Spode dinner and soup plates

We bought these plates several years ago to different dealers, then we have the opportunitiy to buy others sice it seems has been a common pattern here in Córdoba. They are “fully marked” as is usual for the English pottery: marked "Copeland Spode's Tower England" in blue and impressed dates of 1903 one and the other 1900. They also have the Copeland impressed mark, third picture.

The Tower pattern was derived from the printed illustration in Merigot's 'Views of Rome and its Vicinity' published in about 1796. http://spodehistory.blogspot.com.ar/2011/02/tower-pattern.html. Tower depicts the Bridge of Salaro near Porta Salara, Rome (last picture from another old plate by Giuseppe Vasi) http://www.romeartlover.it/Vasi83.htm . In this site it is said that “Ponte Salaro was named after Via Salaria, the road through which the inland regions north of Rome (such as Sabina) received the salt they needed for food preservation and cheese production. Ponte Salaro crossed the Aniene near the point where this river flows into the Tiber; many foreign painters of the XVIIth and XVIIIth centuries depicted it in their Italianate landscapes, small oil paintings which they sold in their countries of origin”.

The blue transfer pattern is very dark, as were the pieces that were done for export, though some opinions said that it was “the usual dark inky blue for this period “. http://www.premierantiques.co.uk/copeland-spodes-tower-pattern-half-moon-side-dish-c1906-825-p.asp. The history of Spode Copeland can be found here http://www.thepotteries.org/potworks_wk/078.htm.