Plate

This blue and white transfer-printed earthenware plate made by the Staffordshire firm of Enoch Wood & Sons features a view of Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky. The University was chartered as a "public school" by the Virginia Assembly in 1780. Subsequently, it relocated in 1783 as a Presbyterian seminary near Danville, Kentucky and became the first American institution of learning west of the Allegheny Mountains. The school moved again in 1788 to Lexington, where it eventually merged with the University of Kentucky in 1865. In 1909 the University reverted to the name Transylvania University. The building depicted in the view was erected in 1818. It later burned in 1829. Wood & Sons' rendering was based on a drawing by Kentucky portraitist Matthew Harris Jouett (ca. 1787–1827) reproduced as an engraving by Cincinnati engraver Enoch G. Gridley (active ca. 1803–1828). The engraving was titled "The Principal Building of Transylvania University, Inscribed to President Holley" and was published in Charles Caldwell's "A Discourse on the Genius and Character of the Rev. Horace Holley, LL.D." (Boston, 1828). Horace Holley (1781–1827), a Unitarian minister and educator, was president of the University from 1818 until 1827 when opposition by Presbyterian educators to his liberal religious views resulted in his resignation. During his tenure, Holley was responsible for instituting an unparalleled period of growth for the University and for significantly raising its level of national prestige. At the time of the engraving, Transylvania University was flourishing, with successful schools of law and medicine among its many educational offerings. Wood & Sons adapted Gridley's composition for its series of approximately twenty-one American views with fruit-and-flower borders known as the "Celtic China" series manufactured for the United States export market. The series was titled "Celtic China" to indicate that Welsh clay was used in the making of the earthenware body. Symbolizing great American intellectual and architectural achievements, universities were popular subjects for transfer-printed export wares. Harvard University was depicted most frequently and appears, for example, on a plate, 14.102.205, by Job & John Jackson (1831–1835) and a plate, 14.102.292, by Ralph Stevenson & Williams (ca. 1825–1827). The American Wing's collection also contains additional pieces by Wood & Sons. Refer to the Dictionary for a definition of the term “transfer printing" and for information about the above-mentioned firms.