Plate

This blue and white transfer-printed earthenware plate made by the Staffordshire firm of Joseph Stubbs features a view of Stevens Villa, the home of Colonel John Stevens (1749–1838) in Hoboken, New Jersey. Stevens was a famous nineteenth-century inventor-engineer who, among other things, built the "Phoenix," the first sea-going steamboat in the world, and also built the first steam locomotive in America, which ran on a circular track around Stevens' estate. Views championing new developments in land and water transport, as well as their inventors, were popular subjects for nineteenth-century transfer-printed wares. Stubbs' view of Stevens Villa was based on a drawing by Philadelphia artist William Russell Birch (1755–1834) engraved and published by the artist as "Hoboken, New Jersey, the Seat of Mr. John Stevens" in William Birch and Son's "The Country Seats of the United States of North America, with Some Scenes Connected with Them" (Springland, Pennsylvania, 1808). Stubbs adapted Birch's view for its series of approximately seventeen architectural and scenic American views with standard borders of spread eagles, flowers and scrolls produced for the United States export market. Additional Birch compositions inspired other views in the Stubbs series, including Philadelphia views of the Bank of the United States and the Hamilton family Woodlands estate on two plates, 14.102.236 and 40.150.323, in the American wing's collection. The collection also contains other pieces by Stubbs. Refer to the Dictionary for a definition of the term “transfer printing" and for information about Stubbs.