Italy Although England dominated the history of commercial transfer printing, the technique had first been used in Italy. A few
maiolica pieces, probably from around
Turin, mix printed and painted elements in their decoration. They date to the late 17th century, or possibly the early 18th; four surviving pieces are known. Between about 1749 and 1752, just at the time of the earliest English printeds, the
Doccia porcelain factory near
Florence also used transfer printing. They also experimented with
stencils, and some pieces mix these techniques. About 50 pieces are known to survive.
England In the 1750s three men made significant advances in the application of printed decoration to ceramic surfaces; it does not seem likely that they were aware of the Italian precedents. Most early uses were on expensive
porcelain wares, in contrast to the 19th century, when it was much more used on
earthenwares. Initially, all pieces were
overglaze printed. A single
Chelsea porcelain plate survives in the
British Museum, which has a transfer-printed design and the "raised anchor" form of the Chelsea mark, indicating a date between 1750 and 1752. A Swiss enamel artist also records seeing printing being done at an unidentified factory near to (but different from) the Chelsea works, during a visit to London that ended in late 1752. In 1751
John Brooks, an Irish engraver then based in Birmingham, petitioned for a patent for “printing, impressing, and reversing upon enamel and china from engraved, etched and mezzotinted plates and from cuttings on wood and metal...” He was primarily concerned with printed decoration on enamels; boxes, plaques, medallions, etc. His patent application failed and he moved from Birmingham to London where he continued to unsuccessfully apply for patents. He was involved in early printing on enamels at
Battersea in London, and probably
Bilston near Birmingham. Printing on enamel probably began around 1753 (a letter of
Horace Walpole dated 7 September 1755 mentions a printed Battersea box), and by around 1756 his process was being used on some
Bow porcelain, although the results were not excellent, perhaps as the glaze was "too soft and fusible", giving a tendency to blur the image. The colours of the 1750s were a "purplish or brownish black" or a "beautiful warm brick-red". By around 1760 there was some
underglaze printing in blue. Five years after Brooks's first patent attempt, in 1756, John Sadler (in partnership with Guy Green) claimed in a patent affidavit that they had spent the past seven years perfecting a process for printing on tiles and that they could "print upwards of Twelve hundred Earthen Ware Tiles of different patterns " within a period of 6 hours. Sadler and Green printed in Liverpool, where their trade included overglaze printing on tin-glazed earthenware, porcelain, and
creamware. Transfer printing on porcelain at the
Worcester porcelain factory in the 1750s is usually associated with Robert Hancock, an etcher and engraver, who signed some pieces and had also worked for Bow. Richard and Josiah Holdship, the managers of Worcester, were very supportive and involved with Hancock's work. By the mid-1750s the Worcester factory was producing both underglaze prints in blue and overglaze prints, predominately in black. Some printed pieces were in complicated shapes and included
gilding, showing that the technique was at this point regarded as suitable for luxury products. From 1842 the
United Kingdom Patent Office introduced a system of registered marks, usually impressed or printed on the underside of pieces. Transfer-printed designs were easily registered by submitting the transfers printed on paper. The technology of transfer printing spread to Asia as well.
Kawana ware in Japan developed in the late
Edo period and was a type of blue-and-white porcelain.
Burleigh, made in
Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent, is the last pottery in the world to still use transfer printing on its ceramics. ==Manufacturers==