Under-glaze Printing.—This is printing which is transferred to the ware, either porcelain or earthenware, when in its "biscuit" state prior to being dipped in glaze. Blue was the most frequent colour used in under-glaze transfer-printing, as of course it was the earliest colour used in the painted under-glaze decorations at Worcester and Caughley. There are other colours, obtained from metallic compounds, used both on porcelain and earthenware under the glaze, and owing to the temperature required for firing in this manner the range is limited, being usually confined to cobalt blue, green, brown, lilac, black, and a few others. But blue is the chief under-glaze colour to be considered in connection with under-glaze transfer-printing. There was a great demand for deep blue and for a lighter blue, both of which came to the Staffordshire earthenware printers and potters from English porcelain factories such as Caughley, where Thomas Turner, an apprentice at Worcester under Robert Hancock, made in 1780 his famous under-glaze blue "Willow-pattern"; or the idea may have been derived straight from the Chinese blue porcelain under-glaze of Nankin, so much in vogue in middle eighteenth-century days.
Staffordshire Transfer-printers.—It has been shown how the Staffordshire potters at first turned to Liverpool, and readily sought the aid of Sadler and Green in the decoration of their salt-glaze and their cream ware, in order to compete with the porcelain factories with Worcester and Caughley at their head. But trade secrets found their way into Staffordshire. The over-glaze printing as practised by Sadler and Green was soon mastered, and later the under-glaze blue printing was imported by workmen from Caughley.
Among the Staffordshire potters the following are the principal pioneers in regard to transfer-printing in its various developments. William Adams, of Cobridge, in 1775 first introduced transfer-printing into Staffordshire. John Turner, of Lane End (not to be confounded with Thomas Turner, of Caughley) was the first to print under-glaze blue in Staffordshire. Josiah Spode, about 1784, introduced his under-glaze blue "willow pattern," a copy of the Caughley pattern. William Adams, of Greengates, in 1787 brought out his under-glaze blue, which in richness and mellowness has never been surpassed; and Josiah Wedgwood, although he never deserted Liverpool for some of his patterns, had a press at work at Etruria, in 1787; and Thomas Minton, now a master potter at Stoke, formerly an apprentice at Caughley with Thomas Turner, designed the celebrated "Broseley Dragon" pattern tea service for porcelain in 1782 (following the willow pattern, 1780), and produced in the late years of the eighteenth century, about 1793, some fine blue-printed ware at Stoke.
These may be termed the earlier exponents of transfer-printing in Staffordshire, but there were others whose blue-printed ware was of great merit in Staffordshire, and Leeds and Swansea, held no insignificant place.
SPODE EARTHENWARE.
Transfer-printed under-glaze blue.
"Bridge pattern" Plate and "Willow pattern" Jug.
CREAM WARE DISH WITH IMPRESSED MARK "TURNER."
With pierced border and band of embossed wickerwork.
Centre printed in blue with "Willow pattern."
(At Victoria and Albert Museum.)