For more than 75 years, Mottahedeh has specialized in hand hard porcelain, crystal, brass, silver plate, and stoneware. They reputation precedes them as they hold licenses to make reproductions and adaptations from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Colonial Williamsburg, Winterthur, and Monticello. They have even created china for the President of the United States and the State Department.
Mottahedeh uses different porcelains to achieve their desired effects. While porcelain ore is basically white, the ore mined at different locations can have slight shade differences. Early Chinese porcelains had a gray body and Mottahedeh replicates it exactly. The porcelain of Limoges is what is called a French body and it is a very bright white with a blue cast. Regardless of which tone of the white you see, just like perfect crystal has no bubbles, perfect porcelain will not have any spots. Spotting occurs when a bit of dust or a fleck of metal gets mixed into the clay or glaze. Mottahedeh takes this into consideration as their plant is extremely clean and neat, so as not to contaminate the clay.
If you are looking for blue underglaze printing, then the work of Josiah Spode should be right up your alley. He perfected the underglaze process from hand engraved copper plates in 1784. Spode’s original blue and white designs have become some of the most collectable and sought after in the history of ceramics.