Rare Staffordshire Pottery ‘salesman sample’ jug, the classic shape printed and lustred with a group of Greek antiquities.

Attributed to Bates, Walker & Co,

Dale Hall Pottery,

Longport, Staffordshire

Circa 1875.

21x14cm, 6mm thick!
Excellent condition

This pattern is recorded by the Transferware Collectors Club (TCC #6209) – but with a variation to this one, with the same apparent vases but in a different configuration – and the candelabrum has lost all arms except the central.

This pattern began production at the works of Thomas & John Mayer, 1838-42 Longport, Staffordshire. It then continues on for a considerable amount of time through successive firms, all with the same border patterns. T.J.& J. Mayer firm (1842-1855) produced it, as well as Mayer Bros. & Elliott, and Mayer & Elliott, two partnerships lasting 1855-1860, followed by Liddle, Elliot & Son (1860-1870) and Bates, Elliott & Co. (1870-1875). Next is Bates, Walker & Co. (1875-1878) and Bates, Gildea and Walker (1878-1881).
The orange lustre is typical of the 1870’s – 1880’s, and so an attribution to Bates, Walker & Co is highly probable, or to Bates, Gildea and Walker.
The linking detail with these partnerships is their location: the Dale Hall works in Longford, Staffordshire. The Mayer & Elliot partnership of 1858-61 included Dale Hall as a premises, and all subsequent productions of the ‘Etruscan Vases’ pattern were made on this site.

A very close example to the pattern titled ‘ETRUSCAN VASES’ , bearing the pattern no. 3048 (possibly over ‘4’, if not ‘X’) was identified as ‘Dale Hall Pottery, Burslem’ by an online seller without any indication of why. The title was a straight-line print, the pattern numbers in red, and there was an impressed ‘P’.