LIVERPOOL TRANSFER-PRINTED JUG.
Medallion representing Diana in her Chariot. (Height 9¼ inches.)
(In the possession of Mr. S. G. Fenton.)
It has already been shown that Liverpool did the printing on the Staffordshire cream ware for the potters who sent it there to be printed, and the same method was followed by Leeds. But there came a time when it was no longer necessary to ask Liverpool to employ a secret process for the decoration of Staffordshire or Leeds work. The secret known at Worcester, and Derby and Battersea, was not many years a secret. The Staffordshire potters undertook to do their own printing, and every pottery soon learned the new process of transfer-printing, and it was not long before improvements were made and newer forms of printing adopted.
Its adoption in Staffordshire.—Allusion has been made to the awkward form of the square tile decoration of fable subjects at Liverpool as applied to circular plates. But Staffordshire in its adoption of the new process made the transfer fit the object to be decorated. In the illustration of the salt-glaze Staffordshire plate with the black transfer-printed design of "Hercules and the Waggoner" from Æsop's Fables ([p. 319]), the engraver has departed from the four corners of his circumscribed tile, and we may put this piece down as of Staffordshire printing.
It is often largely a matter of conjecture as to what was printed at Liverpool and what was printed elsewhere (with the exception of Worcester, where the engraving and printing were more delicate).
The Staffordshire jug showing a full-length portrait of His Royal Highness Frederick, Duke of York, having on the reverse the Dragoon in the uniform of the period, tells its own story as regards date. Frederick was the second son of George III. and was born in 1763 and died in 1827. As this portrait represents him as being advanced into manhood and as at that date—say about 1786—the Liverpool printers had been at work twenty years, the transfer-printing may very reasonably be attributed to Staffordshire.
But it is not always easy to fix the date of the printing, and determine whether by that time Staffordshire had embarked on its own transfer-printing in black; of course, blue transfer-printing is later. The difficulty usually arises in connection with black transfer-printed ware. Liverpool was still engaged in printing for Staffordshire potters as well as printing cream ware of its own potting, and Leeds was producing similar transfer-printed over-glaze ware, so that in unmarked pieces there must always be an uncertainty in coming to a definite conclusion. In all probability the jug (illustrated [p. 323]) and bearing the inscription "Success to Trade" and having a typical eighteenth century rural subject on the reverse entitled "The Faithless Lover," was actually printed by Sadler and Green at Liverpool.
Another finely decorated printed jug is that illustrated ([p. 318]), the subject representing Diana on crescent moon driving a pair of goats in her chariot. The date of this piece is about 1780 to 1800, and is strongly suggestive of Wedgwood cream ware. It will be observed that the design is identical with that in the Turner jasper vase (illustrated [p. 261]).