Chinoiserie

• Two Birds pattern (no mandarin and no fence); Image: Transcollectors Club
  
  From the late 17th to the early 18th century, England imported inexpensive Chinese dinnerware, including a blue-and-white pattern called "Two Birds," the "parent" of the Blue and Nankin Willow patterns.
  
  

Royal Worcester 1751-1790

• The Mandarin and his party on the bridge
  
  Worcester pioneered domestic blue-and-white painted ware in 1751, perfecting a printing process that made English blue-and-white "transferware" competitive with Chinoiserie.
  
  

Minton and Turner

• The fisherman who helped the lovers
  
  Thomas Minton, original engraver of the pattern, and Thomas Turner produced the first transfer-printed pottery at the Caughley Pottery Works in 1780 (Minton later merged with Royal Doulton).
  
  

Spode and Copeland

• Willow Nankin pattern; Image: Transcollectors Club
  
  Spode and William Copeland, now part of now Royal Worcester, produced popular blue-and-white transferware including Willow Nankin and Blue Willow from 1784 until the 1960s.
  
  

Willow's Decline

• Inexpensive Japanese Blue Willow maintained the popularity of the pattern.
  
  Designs trended toward English, classical, Indian and other themes after the Napoleonic wars (c. 1815), but Japanese-produced Blue Willow transferware reintroduced the pattern later in the century.
  
  

Johnson Brothers

• Johnson Brothers' early 20th-century border and birds
  
  Alfred and Frederick Johnson began producing Blue Willow in 1883 and continue production today (Johnson Brothers is now part of the Wedgewood group).
  
  

Other Potteries

• Burleigh Pottery's Blue Willow (1922); Image: thepotteries.org
  
  Many other potteries have produced Blue Willow, each with unique elements worked into borders, garden fence or arbors. Some even used a scalloped rim.