Description: A partial coffee and tea service transfer-printed with the “exotic birds” pattern and enhanced with green enamels and cold gilding, c. 1775. While these pieces are unmarked, Josiah Wedgwood employed this popular print on numerous examples of his creamware. John Sadler and Guy Green of Liverpool reproduced this print for Wedgwood as early as 1761 in various adaptations, copying similar designs from porcelain factories such as Sèvres, Worcester, and Meissen. Shallow, circular saucer with applied footrim; inner well is transfer printed with the "Liverpool Birds" design, printing is further decorated with green enamels and gilding. patterns of this type were transfer printed on creamware by Sadler & Green for Wedgwood. Reilly says: "'Birds' are first noted as being drawn for engraving in August 1763 and were in production in black or red by the following year. Renamed 'Liverpool Birds', these and similar engravings have been regularly in production...for more than 200 years." In 1763, John Sadler wrote to Josiah Wedgwood on the difficulties of transfer printing onto small pieces of creamware such as coffee cups, tea cups, and saucers. He complained of the technically difficulty of firing them, the time they took, and how costly they were.
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