collection of Potteries Museum & Art Gallery, Stoke-on-Trent

Description:

Large fish drainer, made to sit on a larger oval platter which could be used with or without the drainer depending on what food was being served.  The center is printed in brown with a design from a series known to collectors as Archery, this being Archery #5.  The border is not standard for the Archery series; it has a background print in blue with a design of leafy tendrils and with spaces reserved for the additional design of floral sprays overprinted in brown. This border is more commonly seen with center prints from the Floral Sprays series.[i] The border appears to be taken from copper plate engravings for a different shape or size of dish as the patterns are pieced together in several places.

The mark is barely visible but appears to be an impressed liver bird standing on a bar, the feathers on the raised wings can be clearly seen suggesting that it may be a mark used from the 1820s to about 1835.[ii]