Black toile dinnerware (trade name: black transferware) is a style of 'toile' dishes that were first created in the 1780s by potteries like Spode, Wedgwood, and Minton in Staffordshire, England.
You can still buy vintage & antique black toile dinnerware: Check out the list below! As for new black toile dishes: Some of the early 18th-century transferware designs are still produced today, but only in blue & red, not in black.
There's also some contemporary black/white toile-style dinnerware available, but it doesn't look anywhere close to the real deal.
Here's a selection of contemporary black-and-white dinnerware. It comes as close as we're gonna get (at the moment) to the look of original toile de Jouy print designs. As you can see, we're mostly miles off:
Except for the Wedgwood and J. Willfred plates, none of these designs would combine well with traditional toile de Jouy fabric or wallpaper. On the other hand, complete vintage black toile dinnerware sets tend to be hard to find and when you do, they're usually quite pricey.
Here are some ways around the table decorating dilemma:
"Black toile dinnerware" is actually a misnomer: "Toile de Jouy" means 'cloth from (the town of) Jouy', so talking about 'toile dishes' or 'toile dinnerware' makes no literal sense. But many people now use the word 'toile' to describe just the print patterns on the fabric, so the original misunderstanding has taken on a life of its own. (Don't know why I have to be such an annoying nitpicker. Please ignore as you see fit ;-)
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