The honor of this development goes to the English engraver, Robert Hancock, born in Birmingham (1730-1817). We first meet Robert, recorded as a copper plate engraver at York House, at Battersea's enamel works in London.
Here, beautiful little copper boxes were made for the English 18th century luxury market and quite costly objects of vertu, the so-called bijouterie, scent bottles, little snuff boxes and practical wares, such as boxes to contain sewing implements, toothpicks, trays to hold pens, canisters for tea and sugar and even candlesticks, designed to imitated expensive silver pieces.
In 1756 the Battersea factory closed and we next find Robert at the Worcester porcelain factory in the same year. Robert Hancock had obviously taken his knowledge and expertise to the factory management, under the direction of Dr John Wall. The management was highly impressed with the idea of this rapid decoration technique!
Since the opening of the factory in 1751, porcelain painting had been a laborious and expensive process, undertaken by painters with coloured powdered enamels, mixed with lavender oil and brushes.
Robert was able to teach his printing skills and the process was soon mastered with the first, famous, copper plate engraved, black transfer print being produced in 1757. The subject being Frederick the Great, King of Prussia, ally and hero of the seven years war.
Transfer printing as developed at Battersea, began with the unique skill of the copper plate engraver, who deeply engraved, with a fine sharp steel, the desired design. The design was engraved in reverse!, allowing the final print to appear "right way around".
Pigment was then added, often mixed with oil and heated to allow the colour to run deeper into the copper plate engravings, the excess ink then wiped away with a palette knife. The copper plate, after being cleaned off with a cloth was then covered with a sheet of tissue which was dampened and pressed onto the plate. Next, the tissue was gently lifted from the plate and set carefully onto the shape to be printed. As the tissue was deftly lifted away, the design was left behind. This early printing style left the print on top of the glazed item, which was then fired to finally set the print onto the glazed surface.
As the 18th century turned into the early 19th century, new ceramic printing techniques were developed, to not only improve the technique, but make it faster, time is money! The great name at this point is Josiah Spode who is credited with the introduction of under glaze blue transfer printing into Staffordshire, during 1781-84.
During the early 1800's, the tissue was replaced by a sheet of paper, or sometimes fabric. With a layer of glue applied, this could easily be cut and shaped to fit around curved objects such as dishes and teapots. This is known as the "bat" print and gives the process its alternative name "bat printing".
The inked bat was then placed on the ceramic object and an impression left, leaving the print adhering to the shape. The item was then dipped into the glaze and returned to the kiln for the glost, or, low firing. The glue bats were reusable, plus they conformed better to curved surfaces. Cobalt blue, under glaze transfer printing became a standard of the Staffordshire pottery industry.
Men like Josiah Spode, Wedgwood, Thomas Minton and others, were all entrepreneurial types and leading figures of the great Staffordshire ceramic industry.
While sharing amicable business relationships, each kept an eye on the market! It was at this time that large export markets were opening or expanding in North America, Europe, and India where consumers sought elegant, matched sets of wares.
Ching-te-chen, the southwestern of Nankin, became a centre of manufacturing porcelain in the fourteenth during the Ming dynasty. These products of porcelain spread the fame of China throughout the civilized world exporting them to western countries. Let us have a look at the details of the Chinese pottery and porcelain history.
The coming of the Ming dynasty saw the emergence of Ching-te-chen, to the southwest of Nankin, as a centre of manufacture. Here, in the fourteenth century, was organized the series of factories making the porcelain that spread the fame of China throughout the civilized world. The rare pieces decorated in under glaze blue of the reigns of Hsuan Te and Ch'eng Hua are the forerunners of the vast quantities later made for export to the West, and of which examples are still relatively commonplace.
Another esteemed type are the 'three-colour' wares, usually in the form of vases, with the design outlined in raised threads of clay and filled with colored glazes. These latter date from the reign of Wan Li, when the combination of under glaze blue, and overgraze red, yellow, green and aubergine (brown-purple) was used with effect; a style that led to the well-known famille verte of the reign of K'ang Hsi. A smaller factory at Te-hua, in the south of China, was producing the fine white ware, known as blanc-de-chine (Chinese white), which it continued to copy continually in succeeding centuries.
By this date, about 1600, exportation to Europe was beginning to take place, although 'blue and white' (or Nankin, as it is often called) probably formed the bulk. It was towards the end of the seventeenth century, in the reign of the emperor K'ang Hsi, that this export trade assumed enormous proportions and the types of porcelain with which Europeans are familiar were made in quantity. The most popular is the so-called famille verte (green family) with its predominating bright greens and red. All manner of articles were decorated in this style, from sets of vases to figures of goddesses. Large vases were sometimes painted in other colour-combinations: familie jaune and famille noire, in which the ground colour was yellow and black respectively. Examples of these were never numerous, and are now extremely rare.
The single-colour (monochrome) glazes and enamels produced in the Ming dynasty were not only copied, but extended in range during the eighteenth century. A variety of reds and browns were developed, and some of these were controlled skillfully in the kiln to produce unusual effects. Other colors, including yellows and greens, were devised, and a rich ruby red was used sometimes on a class of wares made for export. It occurs on the backs of thin 'eggshell' plates of the Yung Cheng period, and as a ground colour on vases and dishes of the same date.
A further innovation in combination with panels of famille verte was the appropriately named 'powder-blue'. This was made by blowing powdered cobalt through a gauze screen, the panels being protected by pieces of paper, the resulting powdered ground vibrating with colour under the smooth glaze in the best examples. Pieces were sometimes enveloped entirely in powder blue, and decorated over the glaze with designs in the thin and dull gilding used by the Chinese.
By this time, Jesuit missionaries from France had established themselves in China, and were sending back notes of what they could learn of the processes of porcelain making. Of these men, Pere d'EntrecolIes was the most successful and his letters, when they were published eventually, had a great effect on the art in Europe.
The porcelain factories and their produces spread the fame of China and its artists skills and talents. This was seen taking place in the fourteenth century. They produced many types of wares with glazes and with different colors like yellows and greens, were devised, and a rich ruby red was used sometimes on a class of wares made for export. Many of these Chinese designs were copied by the western countries and molded it into their own styles and modified them.
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