La loza “Patrón Sauce” (Willow Pattern) en Rosario, Argentina

Willow Pattern tableware has been treated in several works on English industry and customs. Used on plates, cups, teapots and trays, they have come down to our days as a design that recounts a legend: two chinese lovers who, persecuted, transform into two birds and so avoid punishment. Through the transfer technique– famously blue in color – the design filled the houses of the English middle classes from the end of the 17th century, producing massively, until today. However, today it is infrequent to find these pieces in antique shops and museums. But also it is very rare to find it into Rosario's garbage dumps between 1870 and 1920. The present work aims to establish and explain this contradiction between that presence and an archaeological absence, at least for Rosario. Linking the scarce findings with oral testimonies, the work tries to elucidate the role that this tableware had in English immigration, starting in the mid-nineteenth century, whose memory endures as a story that is sometimes blurred in the descendants, but always valued.