Underglaze transfer-printed earthenware such as this two-colour soup tureen is at the other end of the scale from the wares of the Goodwins of Liverpool (illustrations 1 and 4). It is a lighter, finer-bodied earthen-ware, elegantly shaped, its two-colour printed work further embellished with a painted and gilded knob and handles. This tureen was meant for the affluent household and there were many in Victorian Canada. Its maker was John Ridgway (illustration 14), a member of a family long connected with the Canadian ceramic market. (John had his own agents in Canada and his potter-brother, William, visited this country to evaluate the market for himself.) The tureen dates from approximately mid-century, or just about the time the MontrΘal Gazette published an advertisement for an "experimental shipment" of multi-colour printed earthenware sent from England in 1842 to test the market. Most Canadians, however, chose monochrome printing and, in the end, nothing ever exceeded blue as the most popular colour for tableware. In 1896, the London Art Journal, an influential magazine to which Canadians subscribed (and today a rich source of information on Victorian taste), declared that blue was still the "dominating" colour for tableware.
Courtesy: National Museum of Man, National Museums of Canada (S81-24)
