Description:

An earthenware plate printed in purple. The London Zoological Gardens opened on April 27, 1828 as a center for scientific research. The Staffordshire potters, always seeking to capitalize on popular culture, produced series that depicted the zoo.  Clews produced the  Zoological Gardens Series that showed different center patterns on almost each size and shape, usually copied from lithographs and books of the early zoo. Shown here is a pattern that depicts a zebra and an ostrich in one enclosure and a deer in another.