Collection
/
Decorative Arts and Design

Gravy Bowl with Lid, "Passaic Falls, State of New Jersey"

Enoch Wood & Sons

Object Label

These ceramics are decorated with American landscape scenes and were made in England for the American market. Before the 1840s, only the elite could afford dinnerware, then made of expensive porcelain. One of the early fruits of the Industrial Revolution was the production of inexpensive machine-molded and mechanically decorated earthenware for the middle class. These objects were decorated by the transfer technique, in which the scene is engraved on a metal plate, inked, printed on paper, and then pressed, or transferred, onto the ceramic body.

Caption

Enoch Wood & Sons (active 1818–1846). Gravy Bowl with Lid, "Passaic Falls, State of New Jersey", ca. 1825–1830. Earthenware, 6 1/8 x 5 5/8 x 4 13/16 in. (15.6 x 14.3 x 12.2 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Mrs. William C. Esty, 60.213.189a-b.

Gallery

Not on view

Title

Gravy Bowl with Lid, "Passaic Falls, State of New Jersey"

Date

ca. 1825–1830

Medium

Earthenware

Classification

Food/Drink

Dimensions

6 1/8 x 5 5/8 x 4 13/16 in. (15.6 x 14.3 x 12.2 cm)

Signatures

no signature

Inscriptions

no inscriptions

Markings

On bottom: printed in blue underglaze, eagle bearing banner which reads, "E PLURIBUS UNUM" standing on a rectangle which has printed within "PASSAIC FALLS / STATE OF NEW JERSEY"; impressed "B"

Credit Line

Gift of Mrs. William C. Esty

Accession Number

60.213.189a-b

Frequent Art Questions

  • What is the technique used to make these?

    These are what is called transferware. Rather than being hand painted, which was traditionally very expensive and labor-intensive work, these designs were transferred from metal plates, a process derived from printed book illustrations. In fact, many of the decorations would be copied from images in published books.

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Artists and makers

Enoch Wood & Sons

85 works in the collection