Tin-glazed earthenware (so-called delftware) tile printed in black in Liverpool by Richard Abbey. Abbey, an apprentice of Sadler and Green, set up his own independent business as a ceramic printer at the ripe old age of 19 in 1773. The print is "Mr Foote in the Character of the Doctor in The Devil upon Two Sticks", a play written by Foote himself. This is one of a group of six theatrical subjects with matching borders, all presumably printed by Abbey, their designs taken from Robert Sayer's Dramatic Characters (1769-72). It is possible that Abbey's theatrical tiles predate, and were the inspiration for, those of Guy Green (see no.xxx). This design is no. F2-3 in Anthony Ray's Liverpool Printed Tiles (1994).

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