Plate

This purple and white transfer-printed earthenware plate made by the Staffordshire firm of Job & John Jackson features a view of the Catskill Mountain House, also known as the Pine Orchard House, an inn located about twelve miles southwest of Catskill, New York. Commissioned by a group of businessmen incorporated as the Catskill Mountain Association in 1823, the inn was constructed from 1823 to 1824 by two local craftsmen, Wells Finch and Samuel Chichester. Dramatically situated on Pine Orchard Plateau over two thousand feet above the Hudson River, the inn was the first successful mountain resort in America and was world-renowned for its picturesque surroundings. Jackson based its view of the inn on a work by American landscape painter Thomas Cole (1801–1848) engraved by Fenner, Sears & Co. and reproduced as "View of the Cattskill [sic] Mountain House, N.Y." in John Howard Hinton's "The History and Topography of the United States of North America" (London, 1830 and 1832). Jackson varied Fenner's engraving by increasing the scale and lushness of the trees and shrubbery in the foreground to deemphasize the stark sublimity of the Mountain House site. Other adaptations of the same engraving appear on a plate, 14.102.279, by William Adams & Sons (1819–present) and a plate, 14.102.43, by Enoch Wood & Sons (1818–1846). Jackson's version belongs to a series commonly known as "American Scenery" consisting of approximately thirty-two American views produced for the United States export market with a standard border of floral bouquets and blossoms, C-scrolls and an outer beaded band. The American Wing's collection contains additional pieces by Jackson from the same series. It also contains original works by Cole. Refer to the Dictionary for a definition of the term "transfer printing" and for information about Jackson and the other above-mentioned firms.