John Sadler and Guy Green were the first to print on pottery. During the 1750s, as this process was developed, delftware’s popularity was being challenged by the introduction of new ceramic bodies, most notably salt-glazed stoneware. Unlike delftware, it could be molded to realize more fluid decoration, which showed baroque and rococo styles better. In addition, salt-glazed stoneware was a thinner, harder ceramic and less prone to chips and breakage. Transfer-printing offered the delftware potters a way to update their product in an effort to compete.

Transfer printing in the mid 1700s was ideally suited for a flat surface explaining why a number of designs were produced for tiles. This example belongs to a small group, numbering only eleven compositions. They represent the very best tiles being regular in size and with a smooth surface. Their rarity is underscored when consulting the catalogues of delftware at the Victoria and Albert Museum, Colonial Williamsburg, Historic Deerfield, and the Museum of London, which do not record any polychrome, transfer-printed examples.

This group of tiles first came to scholarly attention through a paper presented by Anthony Ray at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, in 1972. Subsequently, his research was published in the English Ceramic Circle Transactions. The image of the nursemaid brushing the boy’s hat has been identified as an adaptation of an engraving done in 1739 after Jean-Siméon Chardin’s painting La Gouvernante (The Governess; National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa). The composition is reminiscent of Chardin’s genre scene The Good Education (see 85.18).