A-Z of Ceramics - T is for Transfer Printing

Transfer printing is a way of reproducing two-dimensional designs on ceramics. At its best it results in high-quality decoration at a low cost per unit. The design is printed onto a sheet of tissue paper or a thin pliable layer of gelatin (animal glue), by means of which it is then transferred onto the surface of the ware.

The technique was in use at Birmingham in 1751, though it appears to have been practised at the Doccia factory near Florence in the previous decade. 18th-century transfers were made from both paper and pliable sheets of animal glue (or gelatin), but only paper transfers could be used for printing 'blue and white wares'. During the 19th century gelatin transfers were superseded by tissue paper. This type of work is best exemplified by the familiar Willow Pattern.

Plate, Spode Ceramic Works (possibly), Staffordshire, England. Museum no. C.231-1934. Probably a dessert plate, this transfer-printed willow pattern plate differs little from thousands being made by many factories in Staffordshire and elsewhere from the early 19th century onwards.

Teapot, Doccia porcelain factory, 1742-1745. Museum no. C.407-1928. Hard-paste porcelain with transfer-printed figures, hand-painted background and stencilled decoration. As early as the 1740s the Doccia factory in Italy experimented with transfer-printed and stencilled decoration. But it was in England that the technique was fully exploited on porcelain, notably at Worcester and Caughley in the second half of the 18th century.