The exhibition provides an insight into the broad, original and visually attractive field of applied decorative art, which the British themselves call English transfer-printed pottery or in an abbreviated form – as English transferware. The items that can be viewed at the exhibition have something in common in that they have been created from ceramics and that the pattern technique has been used for their decoration – the vessels have been decorated with printed pattern that has been mechanically transferred onto the surfaces of vessels using engraving or other graphics techniques.
This technology, which was already widely used in the late 18th century in England for decorating ceramics, allowed for the creation of magnificent, visually effective vessels in an incomparably faster and much cheaper way than previously. The manufacture of English ceramics was thus facilitated to a previously unseen extent. In the 19th century, millions of examples of transfer-ware were manufactured in the British Isles by English, Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland companies, and were exported to all continents.
The exhibition features British transferware (18th–21st centuries) in Latvian museums and private collections.