Imperfect Printed Enamel Surfaces: Interpreting Marks of Eighteenth-Century Midland Craftsmanship

Abstract

ABSTRACT Eighteenth-century ceramic and enamelware manufacturers recognized that printing provided an efficient means of applying identical decoration to three-dimensional surfaces, which thereby speeded up production. The process, transfer printing, used a flexible paper carrier to ‘transfer’ wet ink from a flat engraved copper plate to the irregular surface of an object. Whilst the ceramics industry is writ large within the grand narrative of the eighteenth-century transfer printing, the methods used by the enamelling trade are little known. Using craftsmanship-framed analysis of printed enamel boxes in Wolverhampton Art Gallery, this article considers their printed surfaces in order to understand the technical and tacit skills developed by the eighteenth-century midland printers and decorators. Analysis of these artefacts provides, for the first time, a more comprehensive understanding of the modes of making the prints, their application, and the problems encountered.