Bowl

Description:

This large creamware bowl is decorated with a variety of transfer prints. The interior of the bowl is a print of an eagle with its wings spread standing on a cannon above a medallion containing the words, “PEACE, PLENTY, and INDEPENDENCE.” This is flanked by two allegorical figures. The figure on the left represents “plenty” holding a cornucopia, while the one on the right represents “peace” using her torch to set fire to instruments of war. Six different prints of military and nautical instruments decorate the inside rim, four prints of pastoral and courtship scenes decorate the outside surface. The “PEACE, PLENTY, and INDEPENDENCE” print is commonly found on creamware meant for the American market dating to the turn of the 18th century. Robert H. McCauley purchased this bowl from Mabel C. Osborne of Upper Montclair, NJ on October 10, 1938 for $25.00.

This bowl is part of the McCauley collection of American themed transfer print pottery. There is no mark on the pitcher to tell us who made it, but it is characteristic of wares made in large volume for the American market in both Staffordshire and Liverpool between 1790 and 1820. Pitchers of this shape, with a cream colored glaze over a pale earthenware clay, known as Liverpool type, were the most common vessels to feature transfer prints with subjects commemorating events and significant figures in the early decades of United States’ history. Notwithstanding the tense relationship between Britain and America, Liverpool and Staffordshire printers and potters seized the commercial opportunity offered them in the production of transfer printed earthenwares celebrating the heroes, the military victories, and the virtues of the young republic, and frequently all of these things at once.