Marco Polo
The transfers on this page are based on an image that appeared in the Illustrated London News in 1853.
Inscription similar to John Patton, Phoenix Pottery
The hand that inscribed these jugs is similar to that found of wares with John Patton printed marks. When Carr and Patton parted company in 1846, they continued to make almost identical wares. However, I haven't found the Marco Polo transfer on items attributable to John Carr's 'Low Lights' Pottery at North Shields. According to RC Bell and MAV Gill, John Patton's name last appears as owner of the Phoenix Pottery in a directory of 1855. The first jug below is dated 1854. However, the links to Patton are currently too weak to form the basis of an attribution. A larger sample of inscribed items might one day help iron out these Tyne attributions.
John Hobson connection
Transfers from the same copper plate as the jugs above appear on bowls impressed with 'J.H' underneath a Staffordshire knot. NB North East potters were not immune from passing off their wares as Staffordshire items. You can read more about John Hobson on this Mariners' Compass page.
The jug below has a very distinctive flower decoration that I haven't yet recorded on other items.
A rare example of a chamber pot with the transfer.
The 'Hobson' version of the transfer appears on plaque forms traditionally attributed to John Carr. However, it's likely that multiple Tyneside potteries used these plaque forms. See also the Gudrun page for similar Hobson-attributed examples, and below for similar large plaques attributed to Thomas Fell
Thomas Fell & Co, St Peter's Pottery, Newcastle
Thomas Fell appears to have acquired the Hobson copper plate and had it re-engraved. Unlike the Hobson imprints, those on this bowl below have small traces of other transfers around the ship. It appears that during re-engraving, Fell embellished transfers to the extent that they now encroached on other designs (see also the Mariners' Compass page). This suggests that the re-engraved copper plate was very tightly packed with images (see details below).
On the 'Fell' imprints of the Marco Polo, there are two pully blocks on the rigging, shown circled in red below, that don't appear on the Hobson imprints (see right below).
The wavy lustre decoration and the red, green and yellow enamelling (clobbering) are very similar to those found on North Shields items, and I would have attributed this bowl to John Carr & Sons, except that it has a crown impressed mark known to have been used by Fell (see the Willow pattern plate below).
A second bowl with the Fell crown impress. On this bowl the transfer appears in conjunction with the Mariner's Compass. However, on the Fell imprints, the initials 'JH' have been greyed out.
The willow meat platter below has the whole array of Fell identification marks.
The transfer on an eel pot or butter dish with very similar decoration to the bowl above. The lid has cut up fragments of the Fell imprints of the Gudrun transfer.
Below, two jugs with the transfer, again paired with the 'Gudrun type' ship transfer, which could easily be mistaken for North Shields items.
Below, a monumental jug with the Fell version of the transfer. The handle has at some point broken and been taken to a blacksmiths for repair. The Mariner's compass transfer on this jug also has greyed out initials for 'JH'.
Below two plaques with the 'Fell' version of the transfer. Previously, this plaque form has been almost exclusively attributed to North Shields.
Unidentified Tyneside pottery
Note that there are no seagulls around the masts.
Late 20th Century Reproductions
|
Sometime around the 1970s, reproduction plaques were reproduced in large numbers. The reproductions are easy to spot as they have the title 'Agamemnon'. Often Agamemnon appears paired with another reproduction titled 'Flying Cloud Boston'.
|
  |