Mr. Fogg: caudle-cups, white sprig’d and saucers; 3 pr. image cream ewers, full blue; 4 white leaf candlesticks, 2s. 3d.; 1 set large sprig’d teas, handled; 2 pr. rib’d boats, at 4s. 6d.; 1 sprig’d tea pot, 4s., good.
Patterns received from Lady Cavendish; a Japan octogon cup and saucer, lady pattern; a rib’d and scollop’d cup and saucer; a basket bordered dysart plate; a Japan bread and butter plate. To be returned in a month, May 28th, 1756.’
“On analyzing these memoranda, although they are but imperfect and necessarily curt, being written only for the writer’s guidance, we are made acquainted with many facts not before disclosed; for example—it has never been suggested that printed china was produced at Bow, yet it is evident that china was decorated with transfer engravings as early as the year 1756, as appears from the following entries:—
“‘One pint printed mug, One half-pint, do., A sett compleat of the second printed teas.’
“The patent which Messrs. Sadler and Green, of Liverpool, proposed taking out as inventors of the process is dated 1756, but they had brought the art to perfection several years before, and had kept it a profound secret. Transfer printing on enamel was in vogue at Battersea before 1755, and the process would be the same on china as enamel. Horace Walpole, writing to Richard Bentley in Sept. 1755, says, ‘I send you a trifling snuff-box, only as a sample of the new manufacture at Battersea, which is done with copper-plates.’ Mr. Binns, of Worcester, has a Battersea enamel watch-case with the tea-party from the same plate as the impressions on china. The Liverpool Guide of 1799 says ‘copper-plate printing upon china and earthenware originated here in 1752, and remained some time a secret with the inventors, Messrs. Sadler and Green. The manner in which this continues to be done here, remains still unrivalled in perfection. As late as 1783, Wedgwood constantly sent his ware to Liverpool to be printed.’
“The proprietors of the Bow works availed themselves of assistance by occasionally sending their china to Liverpool to be printed.[70] All the pieces decorated with transfer engravings, have, without discrimination, been erroneously assigned to Worcester, owing to the want of a thorough investigation of the quality of the body.
“Lady Charlotte Schreiber has a teapot with a transfer portrait of the ‘Prussian Hero,’ the handle and spout ornamented in relief with the enamelled flowers peculiar to Bow; a bowl with prints of the well-known tea-party, and garden-scenes; and two plates, part of ‘a sett of the second printed teas,’ before alluded to, with poultry and leaves. All these are undoubtedly of Bow body, probably decorated at Liverpool.
“Large quantities of blue-painted ware issued from the Bow works, and there are frequent allusions to them in the order-book, for cheap services. On examining the blue pieces, which can be safely assigned to Bow from the nature of the body, there is a peculiarity in the glaze which arises in this way: blue being at that time the only colour that would bear the intense heat of the kiln (au grand feu), it is always painted on the biscuit before being dipped in the glaze; consequently portions, however slight, are apt, while the glaze is in a fluid state, to spread over the surface, giving it a blue tinge, especially on large surfaces; the other colours, as well as the gold, are painted over the glaze, and set in a kiln of lower temperature, called the reverberatory or muffle kiln. Hence the blue, being under the glaze, is imperishable, but the other colours, from frequent use, get rubbed off.
“We find in the order-book the blue Newark pattern; blue dolphin pickle-stand; ‘setts of blue teas.’ A dinner-service was ordered to be ‘blue and pale as you please,’ &c.
“Among the patterns noticed in the same book are white bud sprigs, sprigged tea sets, and Dresden sprigs; partridge services, imaged services, and dragon services, were in great demand; Chelsea cabbage leaf, the lady pattern, and the Princess of Wales’s pattern, white men with salt boxes, mugs painted to the fine landscape pattern, &c.