Description:
English white salt-glazed stoneware, press-molded circular plate with a turned flat foot. The wavy, octafoil gilt rim has four reliefs, each appearing twice: battle armorial with cannon, drum, ax on a trelliswork background; Imperial Eagle on asterisk trellis; two scrolling vines enclosing a bust of Frederick II (1712-1786) who was a King of Prussia (reigned 1740–1786) and became known as Frederick the Great of Prussia; and two opposing vines on the right of the motto "THE KING OF / PRUSSIA." The well has a repeating border of gilt scrolls encircling the King's armorial shield. The decorator of this plate has made extensive use of gilding, a rare form of ornamentation in the Staffordshire potteries. This is an unusual version of the more typical molding and wording found on these popular plates which normally reads: "SUCCESS TO THE KING OF PRUSSIA AND HIS FORCES." A label attached to the bottom of this plate reads: "The only other example apparently recorded with the duplicated bust portrait and inscription is in the British Museum, Catalogue No. G. 112 (also with oil-gilt rim)." However, Peter Williams and Pat Halfpenny illustrate one (not gilded) from the Weldon collection and refer to one illustrated by Luxmoore. These "King of Prussia" plates were very popular during the Seven Years War (1756-1763) which was known as the French and Indian War in the colonies. The war started when Austria, France, Sweden, and Saxony attacked Prussia in an attempt to destroy Frederick the Great's power; England allied herself with Prussia and won significant victories in India and Canada, thus laying the groundwork for the "British Empire." Frederick the Great became a very popular figure in England and the colonies, especially after his victory at Rossbach in Saxony against the Franco-Imperial Army on Nov. 5, 1757, and was the subject of many commemorative prints and used as decoration on delft, salt-glazed stoneware and creamware ceramics. England exported many of these salt-glazed stoneware ceramics to North America as evidenced by an advertisement for "White Stone, Prussian and Basket work'd Plates and Dishes" appearing in the Nov. 5, 1758 "Boston Gazette" and fragments excavated from Colonial Williamsburg's Wetherburn's Tavern to Fortress Louisbourg on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, Canada. No enameled examples with King of Prussia borders have been identified, but Mountford illustrates a painted salt-glazed plate (Colonial Williamsburg collection ) with a basket weave and trellis relief border and a waist-length portrait of the Frederick the Great in a tricorn hat in the center well with the ribbon encircling him inscribed "FREDERICUS MAXIMUS BORUSS REX." Less common than salt-glazed stoneware King-of-Prussia plates are versions in tortoiseshell-patterned creamware (see HD 56.030 and HD 90.217). It appears that the same molds were used to produce both salt-glazed and creamware "King of Prussia" plates. Although Staffordshire white stoneware had been perfected by about 1720, its possibilities for mass-production were not fully exploited until the 1740s. Then the techniques of press-moulding, slip-casting and enamelling were developed, and the drabness of the greyish stoneware surface was successfully relieved by the addition of all-over decoration.
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