Plate, Bridge and Castle

Item Number: P168
Item Shape:  Plate
Pattern Name: Bridge and Castle
Date: c. 1810-1830
Dimensions: D 9.375″
Maker: Unknown
Maker’s Mark: Unmarked
Description:
 A round earthenware dinner plate printed in blue underglaze in a provisionally named pattern “Bridge and Castle”.  This pattern was first recorded in FOB Bulletin 77, Autumn, 1992, page 6, on a large platter as an unrecorded transitional Chinoiserie pattern: “The center feature of the main pattern is a strange castle/monastery like building whose various sections have different shaped towers, different shaped windows…in fact, a hotch-potch. To the left is a wooden bridge with two figures in silhouette conversing on it, one with a pole over his shoulder. In the foreground are two better-defined figures conversing. One of these two appears to be Chinese, the other wears European dress. A large tree to the right of these two figures spreads its branches, fruit and leaves over the sky. Stranger still, is the border pattern which provides four repeats of a design which includes something like a bishop’s miter, a patch of trefoils, a segment filled with a cellular pattern, some branches and twigs, and single thread of continuous stringing.
Condition:  Good. Some staining on the back side that does not show through. Glaze is in very good condition.