Bearing the Medieval French motto 'Souveigne Vous de Moy' (Remember Me), this plate was the result of a creative partnership between the architect, writer and designer A.W.N Pugin and Herbert Minton of Minton and Company - a collaboration that embraced innovations in both manufacture and design and which had already resulted in a series of encaustic floor tiles. Pugin was one of the main exponents of the Gothic Revival style in England and is perhaps best known for his work on the interior of The Palace of Westminster, London, while in terms of design and technical innovation, Minton's was undoubtedly the leading ceramic firm in mid-nineteenth-century Britain.

In 1848, a technique for multicolour printing on ceramics was patented by F.W.M Collins and Alfred Reynolds, based on methods pioneered by the printmaker George Baxter. Both Pugin and Minton were quick to see the advantages of the new process. This involved printing onto a sheet of paper in sequence and 'in register' from a set of printing plates (one for each colour), and this was then used to transfer the design to the ceramic ware. Unlike earlier transfer-printing techniques, block-printing, or 'New Press' as it came to be known, allowed the printing of solid areas of colour, so was particularly suited to the complex flat pattern designs that were such a strong component of Pugin's Gothic style.

Displayed in the Medieval Court of the Great Exhibition of 1851, this plate exemplified the new printing technique as applied to tableware and demonstrated the Gothic style's potential for use in the domestic sphere.