The Dresden gallery
A plate of Meissen-style porcelain from Samuel Litchfield's trade catalogue, published in London in 1876 for dealers and collectors of ceramics. The plates are numbered engravings of cups, saucers, covered pots, vases and a teapot, drawn in clean outline with stippled shading and hatching on the decoration. A designer could take the scrolling floral borders, the cartouche-like panels and the shaped handles and lids as ready references for ornamental pattern and historical decorative detail.
