Platter

This dark blue and white transfer-printed earthenware platter made by the Staffordshire firm of John & William Ridgway features a view of the United States Capitol building in Washington, District of Columbia. The view belongs to a series of approximately twenty-two views with borders of rose-filled leaf-shaped oval medallions titled "Beauties of America" produced for the United States export market. The series records important nineteenth-century hospitals, colleges, churches, libraries and other public buildings from Massachusetts to Georgia. As a symbol of American political power with obvious appeal to patriotic American consumers the Capitol was a popular subject for transfer-printed export wares. Designed and constructed in several stages from 1793 to 1830 by Philadelphia architects William Thornton (1759–1828) and Benjamin Henry Latrobe (1764–1820) and Boston architect Charles Bulfinch (1763–1844), the Capitol was also admired as a monumental example of American neoclassical architecture. Ridgway's view captures the building when it was still a work in progress with the final central dome designed by Philadelphia architect Thomas Ustick Walter (1804–1887) to be added later from 1855 to 1865. Other views of the Capitol in the same unfinished state decorate a platter, 14.102.65, by William Ridgway & Co. (ca. 1834–1854) and a plate, 14.102.131, by Ralph Stevenson & Williams (ca. 1825–1827). The views by John & William Ridgway and Ralph Stevenson & Williams were based on a drawing by little-known artist H. Brown, engraved by Fenner, Sears & Co., and reproduced as "Capitol of the United States, Washington" in John Howard Hinton's "The History and Topography of the United States of North America" (London, 1830 and 1832). The American Wing’s collection contains additional pieces by John & William Ridgway. Refer to the Dictionary for a definition of the term "transfer printing" and for information about Ridgway and the other above-mentioned firms.