My Largest Willow Plate!

To the normal eye, you simply would think, why does she have a picture of a regular willow pattern plate? Looks can be very deceiving my friends. This plate weighs in at around 35 pounds and is 40 inches tall. No, this is not china….it is wood!

Last May, I was surfing the internet, for my next find and decided to switch over to Instagram. I often don’t look on Instagram for willow pattern items, but just by chance, I saw this piece. There was a front and back picture of this plate hanging in an art gallery in London at Sans Pretention. I immediately wanted to know more about this piece, so I sent a direct message to see what info I could get.

His response was this is a 19th century carved wooden plate, most likely a private commission piece used as a shop sign. He told me he purchased it in Italy at auction, however it was definitely English in Origin. I obviously wanted to know if this was something he would ship the the US and well, I will spare you the details of how much the plate itself cost.

The piece arrived while my husband was out of town. I always cringe when I purchase a large piece of willow and see that it is arriving when he is home and I am out of town. You know, the questions begin!!!! He knows I love willow as much as he loves Martin Guitars, so we don’t give each other much of a hard time at this point in our 25 years together.

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Sorry for how bad this picture looks but I managed to get this box up two flights of stairs to the spare bedroom for unpacking. With the packing, boxes, foam etc. it weighed in excess of 50 pounds, not to mention the box was nearly as tall as me, so dragging it up stairs was no easy feat! It was also strapped to a pallet….ugh no hiding this one! You can see from the picture the basic size of the piece…..

The next question that arose was where will I put this, it must be out in the open to be seen. Otherwise, I was going to be shoving this under the bed, leaving my coon dog no place to sleep on stormy nights….so around the house I went.

I stopped in the kitchen where I had a beautiful oak sideboard my husband and I purchased in Ohio near Amish Country. Above it I had a framed hand painted picture I had received when I worked at a previous job and to be fair it probably had bad juju anyhow! I was like ok, how do I get that off the wall? I knew it had taken two men to get it up there….little old me (I like to think I am little…so please lie to me and tell me its true!)

I managed to get the picture down and took it down a flight of stairs to the basement. By the time I was done with that, my arms felt like they were on fire….yeah, not much muscle tone there! Next I began to figure out how to lift this 35 lb plate above my head on a step stool to snag the anchor hook in the wall. Recall my arms were still shaking.

After several times, the plate finally caught the hook and it was a success. I wondered how long it would take before anyone noticed the swapping of art pieces. I knew my hubby would notice it and say….hmmmm how much did that cost? But I was prepared, I had been selling all sorts of stuff on Ebay so I could make this purchase happen.

I want to share some pictures of the up close pattern, the back and you too can fall in love with this wooden plate that will forever hang in my kitchen until I die and my kids have to figure out what in the heck to do with all of the willow!

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You can see how detailed this piece is. It is a shade of navy blue, I apologize for the pictures making it look weird against the yellow walls, but you get the gist. As you can see the plate is truly shaped like a plate would be. The detail is simply amazing. I would love to know the life this piece has lived.

I have to say, this is my most prized willow plate. I am simply in love with it and it makes my kitchen complete. No more bad juju picture!

I would love to hear from you what you most prized piece of willow is. So Please Share!!!!!

Talk soon!