Shape Type: Miscellaneous

Pattern Type: Literature, Classical, Mythology, and the Arts

Date: 1773-1790

Dimensions:

  • Height: 5.00 in (12.70 cm)
  • Length: 5.00 in (12.70 cm)
  • Width: 0.28 in (0.70 cm)

Maker: Unknown

Printer: Guy Green

Description:

Tin-glazed earthenware (so-called delftware) tile printed in black and painted in green by Guy Green, Liverpool, with "The Judgement of Hercules" (Anthony Ray, Liverpool Printed Tiles, 1994, no. E1-1). Hercules chooses between Virtue, who points to an arduous upward path, and Pleasure, who suggests he relax with her. It is one of a series of tiles with neoclassical subjects (either figures or vases), all of which include the green enamelling as a standard part of the design. The choice of this color might be thought a whim of Guy Green's, but green was a newly fashionable color for interior decoration in the 1760s and '70s. 

 

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