Image of Gallery in South Kensington
On display at V&A South Kensington
Ceramics, Room 139, The Curtain Foundation Gallery

Dish

ca. 1810 (made)
Artist/Maker
Place of origin

Object Type
The majority of blue and white transfer-printed pottery, made in huge numbers after about 1800, consisted of cheap tablewares made for the general population. Many thousands of plates of this general type were made by many British potteries in the early 19th century.

Design & Designing
Having exhausted the possibilities of making direct copies of Chinese porcelains, engravers making copper-plates specifically for the pottery trade began to turn to invention. If pagoda-like temples from China were exotic, then so were palm-trees from the Middle East. Such muddled designs were never intended to be studied, as they now are by ardent collectors.

Time
When this plate was made, it was about 40 years since the first expensive English blue and white porcelain tablewares had been made at Worcester. With the advent of the taste for the more austere Neo-classicism at the end of the 18th century, makers of fashionable porcelains abandoned Chinese-type decoration and instead began to copy French styles. At the same time, partly to replace the defunct manufacture of delftware, transfer-printing in blue was applied to cheap earthenware for the mass market. By 1800, the style that in the 1770s the wealthy had considered the latest fashion was given a new - and much longer - lease of life lower down the social scale.


Object details

Categories
Object type
Materials and techniques
Earthenware, transfer-printed in underglaze blue
Brief description
Dish with Two Temples pattern
Dimensions
  • Depth: 4.8cm
  • Diameter: 22cm
Dimensions checked: Measured; 02/02/2000 by RK
Gallery label
  • British Galleries: The Two Temples pattern was made by several manufacturers and each had his own title for it.(27/03/2003)
  • Dish Made in Staffordshire, about 1800-10 Lead-glazed earthenware Circ.239-1916 Bequeathed by Mr Algernon Brent FRG(23/05/2008)
Credit line
Bequeathed by A. Brent
Object history
Probably made in Staffordshire
Summary
Object Type
The majority of blue and white transfer-printed pottery, made in huge numbers after about 1800, consisted of cheap tablewares made for the general population. Many thousands of plates of this general type were made by many British potteries in the early 19th century.

Design & Designing
Having exhausted the possibilities of making direct copies of Chinese porcelains, engravers making copper-plates specifically for the pottery trade began to turn to invention. If pagoda-like temples from China were exotic, then so were palm-trees from the Middle East. Such muddled designs were never intended to be studied, as they now are by ardent collectors.

Time
When this plate was made, it was about 40 years since the first expensive English blue and white porcelain tablewares had been made at Worcester. With the advent of the taste for the more austere Neo-classicism at the end of the 18th century, makers of fashionable porcelains abandoned Chinese-type decoration and instead began to copy French styles. At the same time, partly to replace the defunct manufacture of delftware, transfer-printing in blue was applied to cheap earthenware for the mass market. By 1800, the style that in the 1770s the wealthy had considered the latest fashion was given a new - and much longer - lease of life lower down the social scale.
Collection
Accession number
CIRC.239-1916

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Record createdMarch 27, 2003
Record URL
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