Description:
A rare Staffordshire, press molded, white salt-glazed stoneware octagonal plate, with three color printed decoration in purple, red, and black enamel, possibly applied in Liverpool, England, the central purple vignette depicts Aesop's Fable of "The Fox and the Goat," enclosed by four floral sprays, two in iron red and two in light black or gray, the rim has a molded trellis border divided by pairs of plumes, and is edged with a brown enamel line. Very few examples of three color printing on salt glaze stoneware exist. One plate was formerly in the collection of Norman Stretton, illustrated in Stoneware & Stone Chinas, no. 19, and in Fable Subjects, p. 205, pl. 1. The moral of the fable of The Fox and the Goat, in which a trapped fox lures a goat into a well and then uses the goat as a vehicle for his own escape, is "Look Before you Leap!" Identical plates are in the collection of Colonial Williamsburg and the Chipstone Foundation.

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