Pots with Attitude: British Satire on Ceramics 1750-1820

Patricia Ferguson, Project Curator at the British Museum offers an examination of a uniquely British innovation – cream-coloured earthenware transfer-printed with political propaganda, attacks on the clergy, or the latest royal scandal, that swiftly broadcast current events throughout the United Kingdom and overseas. Mostly made in Staffordshire but printed elsewhere, these designs openly reproduced the graphic satires of London’s leading caricaturists on to mugs, jugs, and plates, which were sold at a fraction of the price of the originals, disseminating their controversial messages to all levels of society. 

Credit to Susan Ferguson for bringing this video to our attention.