Description:
Staffordshire miniature or toy plate in blue and white. / boy flying kite. This plate has a transfer printed design in underglaze blue of an older man looking at a gravestone along with a young boy flying a kite and another young boy rolling a hoop. There is also a village green with a church and other large building in the background. Information from Coysh and Henrywood’s The Dictionary of Blue and White Printed Pottery, 1780-1880, related that the scene derives from a print source from Thomas Bewick’s History of British Birds (1797 and 1804). The original woodcut engraving did not have a boy flying a kite- perhaps this was added to the engraved copper plate for transfer printing. Instead of being Benjamin Franklin (as some collectors have called the scene), the scene appears to be a message about the transience of life and the evanescence of things. The older man is staring at the tombstone which reads “vanitas vanitatum, et omnia vanitas (Vanity of vanities, and all is vanity);” while the young boy plays without a care or any thought of death. This transfer print seems to appear only on these miniature ceramics – nothing in a larger size. Historic New England has a partial dinner service of this pattern with a history of ownership by Lydia B. Sterns of Salem, MA. See acc. no. 1941.836.
Subjects:
Pottery; Enamel and enameling; glaze (coating by location) Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+78.122 |
