Plate

This blue and white transfer-printed earthenware plate made by the Staffordshire firm of Enoch Wood & Sons features a view of Trenton Falls, near the town of Prospect about fourteen miles from Utica, New York. Trenton Falls, destroyed by the construction of a hydroelectric plant earlier in this century, were once part of West Canada Creek, which flows through Herkimer and Oneida counties into the Mohawk River at the town of Herkimer. Second only in fame to Niagara Falls, Trenton Falls were a major nineteenth-century tourist attraction. Over three hundred feet high, they were noted for their broad flat limestone ledges surrounded by a cedar forest at their summit. Wood & Sons probably based its view of the Falls on a painting by French painter Jacques Gerard Milbert (1766–1840) reproduced as an engraving titled "Canada Creek Falls" in Milbert's "Itineraire pittoresque du Fleuve Hudson" (Paris, 1828–1829). Milbert spent eight years in the United States from 1815 to 1823 on a scientific mission throughout the northeast recording the landscape and collecting over 7,000 natural specimens, including the first living specimen of the American buffalo introduced into France. Wood & Sons adapted Milbert's composition for its series of approximately thirty-one American and Canadian scenic views with symmetrical shell borders produced for the North American export market. The American Wing's collection contains additional pieces by Wood & Sons. Refer to the Dictionary for a definition of the term "transfer printing" and for information about wood & Sons.