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Plate, "Natural Bridge, Virginia"

Decorative Arts and Design

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.
MEDIUM Earthenware
DATES ca. 1840
DIMENSIONS 9 3/16 x 9 3/16 in. (23.3 x 23.3 cm)  (show scale)
MARKINGS Base printed with spray of flowers and foliage and the legend: "NATURAL BRIDGE / VIRGINIA / E W & S / CELTIC CHINA"; also black numeral "10"
ACCESSION NUMBER 72.184.11
CREDIT LINE Gift of Mrs. Ben P. Grant in memory of Dr. and Mrs. Henry Fleming Payne
CATALOGUE DESCRIPTION Earthenware plate, gray and white transfer-printed. In center, scene of the Natural Bridge, Virginia, within a border of fruit and flowers around rim. Condition: Good.
MUSEUM LOCATION This item is not on view
CAPTION Enoch Wood & Sons (active 1818-1846). Plate, "Natural Bridge, Virginia," ca. 1840. Earthenware, 9 3/16 x 9 3/16 in. (23.3 x 23.3 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Mrs. Ben P. Grant in memory of Dr. and Mrs. Henry Fleming Payne, 72.184.11. Creative Commons-BY (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 72.184.11_bw.jpg)
IMAGE overall, 72.184.11_bw.jpg. Brooklyn Museum photograph
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RIGHTS STATEMENT Creative Commons-BY
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