Description:

Pearlware mug printed in underglaze brown with a group of female archers. The main print, the outer border and the inner border are all found as tissue paper 'pulls' in the Ralph Wedgwood Pattern Book in the Wedgwood Museum, Barlaston. Ralph had the book while at the Knottingley Pottery, Ferrybridge, in Yorkshire, but some of the contents relate to wares which he had already made at the Hill Pottery in Burslem. He was already printing in underglaze brown there, because services printed with shells are listed in the sale after his bankruptcy, and this shell pattern is known only in brown.