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Database of Patterns & Sources Count
20,032 patterns, 1,190 sources now available in the Database Patterns and Sources.
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Dear Transferware Enthusiasts:
| | We’ve entered the new year, an excellent opportunity to join the TCC and take full advantage of our many available services and features. | | IT'S TIME TO RENEW YOUR MEMBERSHIP! | | |
Dear TCC Member,
TCC memberships expired on December 31, 2025. Members who joined in 2025 and paid by credit card, and checked the box for auto renewal, will have their membership automatically renewed. The membership cost has not changed from last year. When the auto renewal takes place, the member will receive an email confirming that they are now members for 2026.
Members who did not choose to have their membership automatically renewed, can renew on the TCC website. If you are unsure whether you opted in to auto renewal, you can sign into your account on the TCC website and check your status. Also, please be sure your address has been updated if you have recently moved. Renew my membership.
When you renew your membership, we encourage you to consider adding a donation to support the club’s many programs and services like the Database of Patterns and Sources, Bulletins, the Transferware Worldwide Lecture Series, and the Research Grant Program.
Thank you for your continued membership and support of the TCC.
Sincerely,
Jo Anne Jones
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Printed copies of the new bulletin (32 pages) have been mailed. Members can download the bulletin in PDF format here, and anyone can download the issue’s sample article here.
The TCC Bulletin Index -- incorporating listings of articles from the Fall 1999 issue through to the most recent issue. A rich resource! Search Index.
The Bulletin editors are seeking contributions for the upcoming bulletin. Contacts: David Hoexter: davidhoexter@icloud.com or Michael Sack: msack@michaelsack.com
Transferware Collectors Club (TCC) Bulletin writers guidelines: Download writers guidelines
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Transferware Collectors Club
A Tour to England including
the Newark Antiques Fair
accompanied by Patricia Halfpenny
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June 2nd - 9th, 2026
Please join us on a ceramic study tour to England where we will visit both public and private collections. This one-week tour will introduce you to some of the most significant collections of earthenware found in and around London and Staffordshire — including special access at private homes and museums that is not possible on your own. We will be accompanied by Patricia Halfpenny, born in Staffordshire, a former curator of ceramics at The Potteries Museum in Stoke for 28 years. Pat then served as Curator of Ceramics & Glass, at Winterthur Museum, retiring with honors as Curator Emerita in 2009. Her invaluable contacts will allow us to draw on the expertise of knowledgeable authorities and collectors who have generously offered to make the best collections available.
Highlights
- Factory tours at Middleport (the oldest working pottery in Staffordshire) and Duchess China 1888 (maker of fine bone china for more than 135 years)
- Handling sessions at the Victoria & Albert Museum, Keele Hall’s Mason Raven Collection, Spode Museum, and the V&A East Storehouse
- Treasure- and bargain-hunting at the Newark International Antiques & Collectors Fair, as well as shopping opportunities at factory and museum shops
- Evening lectures by Patricia Halfpenny and Dr. Richard Halliday, as well as a ‘Transferware Quiz Night’ for all to enjoy
- Demonstrations by master craftsmen of transfer printing at Spode Museum and hand painting at Duchess China 1888
- Access to two private collections not available to the public
- Visit to the V&A East Storehouse, which opened on 31st May 2025, and houses over 250,000 artifacts, 350,000 books, and 1,000 archives in a four-level complex with 16,000 square meters of floor space
To register, click GO TO ENGLAND to download the full Itinerary and to register and secure your place with a $1,000 per person deposit.
THIS TOUR NOW HAS THE REQUIRED NUMBER OF PARTICIPANTS AND IS CONFIRMED. IT CAN ONLY ACCEPT 4 MORE REGISTRANTS. DON’T WAIT!
Highlights of Tour Day 1: June 3
Highlights of Tour Days 2 & 3: June 4 & 5
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The Transferware Engraver
Introducing a new book that details the process of engraving a transferware pattern on to a copper-plate. This 272-page soft-back book covers a ten-year quest by the author who recorded the engraving of a new pattern from start to finish, with every line cut and every dot punched throughout its completion. TCC members will get a 50% discount on the book for the first three months, therefore: Until February the 14th. More details.
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Inappropriate Children's Patterns by Judie Siddall
Children haven’t changed in the past two hundred years, but the concept of childhood and what is appropriate for children has changed. Nineteenth century British children’s mugs and plates were created as inexpensive gifts or rewards to teach religion and the alphabet as well as to delight with pictures of animals and children’s activities. However, some of the patterns found on this pottery are frightening! Read this article.
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India for Transferware Collectors by Michael Sack
Author Michael Sack describes the 2020 tour by 13 transferware enthusiasts to India. The group visited a number of sites that were painted by British artists in the 18th and early 19th century and subsequently incorporated as views on transferware. Images of the pottery, source prints, and locations as they appear today are included. Read this article.
| | | VIDEO LECTURE OF THE MONTH | | |
Transfer Prints, Archaeology, and AI: the Transferware AI Project and Possibilities
This is one of six lectures presented at the 2025 TCC conference celebrated the many Landscapes, Real and Imagined, on British Transferware! In his lecture, Transfer Prints, Archaeology, and AI: the Transferware AI Project and Possibilities, Professor John Chenowith discuss how the TCC and the University of Michigan are collaborating on an AI application intended to facilitate pattern identification. Watch video.
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Bear Hunting #01
Shown is "Ross & Sons'" Bear Hunting #01. It is a pot lid (lid for a container) that was printed with information about the contents and the name of the manufacturer. This lid advertises Bear’s Grease, which was used as a pomade for men’s hair. The lid was made by F. & R. Pratt (& Co.) 1818-1920. For TCC members, this is Database pattern #6257. View larger image. See past Patterns of the Month.
| | Thanks to Judie Siddall for preparing the "Pattern of the Month." | | |
Egyptian Miscellany Puzzle
An intriguing center pattern of dozens of small forms, some of which are recognizable as being derived from ancient Egyptian symbolism. A platter is illustrated in Friends of Blue Bulletin #20, given the title “Egyptian Miscellany.” There is no mark, and the maker is unknown. It dates to c. 1810-1830. It is Pattern # 10794 in the TCC Database of Patterns and Sources. The border was also used on another unmarked pattern in the database titled “Winged Sphinx and Greek Key” (Pattern #9928). Image courtesy of eBay seller loch_leven.
Thanks to Scott Hanson for photo and preparing the "Puzzle of the Month."
| | Thanks to Loren Zeller for the photo.
Thanks to David Hoexter for preparing the "Photo of the Month." | | |
A Transferware Blog by Judie Siddall.
Hurdy-Gurdy and Transferware
While adding patterns to the Transferware Collectors Club Database of Patterns and Sources, I noticed a pattern of a young girl playing a guitar-like instrument. I knew the instrument wasn't a guitar. It was a hurdy-gurdy. Read more.
| | CLUB & INFORMATION WEBSITES | | |
The Daniel Ceramic Circle
The website of the Daniel Ceramic Circle is where you will find accurate and up-to-date information and the latest research into the manufacture of H & R Daniel pioneers of enameling and gilding techniques, and producers of some of the finest ceramics of their day. Visit the site.
English Ceramic Circle
The English Ceramic Circle is dedicated to the study of ceramics manufactured, decorated, or used in the British Isles. The ECC offers these benefits to our members:
- free copies of the annual ECC journal, Newsletters and other ceramic volumes
- regular convivial meetings with talks on new research by ceramic experts
- broadening your ceramic knowledge, making new friends and meeting ceramic experts
- online access (with full text-search) to the ECC archives comprising around 700 papers
- handling sessions at museums/public collections and visits to private collections
- exclusive auction preview visits, including Bonhams and Woolley & Wallis
Visit the site.
Find more of the informative resources we've compiled here.
| | LECTURE, SYMPOSIA, and MEETING INVITATIONS | | |
Connecticut Ceramics Circle
Common Languages, Distinct Accents: Mexican Ceramics in Dialogue at the MFA
Boston and Beyond”
by Lucía Abramovich Sánchez, Carolyn and Peter Lynch Associate Curator
of American Decorative Arts and Sculpture, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Sponsored by Letitia Roberts
January 12, 2026 2PM
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In this presentation, their speaker will explore the distinct regional accents embedded in Mexico’s long and diverse history of ceramic production. She will convey how these are distinguished — or overlooked — in their presentation within museum exhibitions and collections, particularly in U.S. and European institutions. Beginning with a brief overview of pottery traditions in pre-contact Mesoamerica and the Viceroyalty of New Spain, this presentation will trace the aesthetic evolution and material practices of ceramic production in two regions — Puebla and Jalisco — whose rich legacies are the most prominently represented in international museum holdings. Puebla’s Talavera Poblana, with its cobalt blue glazes and iconography shaped by Asian and Islamic influences, and Jalisco’s burnished redwares, known for their aromatic clays and sculptural forms, will serve as primary case studies.
Through recent advances in scholarship on 17th-century Talavera Poblana, as well as an analysis of recent exhibitions and permanent displays that reexamine colonial ceramics across the Americas, Sánchez will illustrate how narratives around Mexican ceramics are being reshaped within global art history. She aims to highlight these gaps in the research of historical ceramics, such as the overlooked biographies of potters, intergenerational technical knowledge, and the histories of lesser-known centers like Natá, Panamá, and Santiago de Chile, and argue for a more inclusive and nuanced interpretive framework.
Finally, Sánchez will propose curatorial strategies to increase the visibility of these works in underrepresented collections, especially interpretive models that frame Mexican ceramics not only as works of decorative art, but as objects of cultural memory that speak across time and place, telling stories that connect people around the world through the universal language of clay.
Lucía Abramovich Sánchez is the Carolyn and Peter Lynch Associate Curator of American Decorative Arts and Sculpture at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. She previously served as Associate Curator of Latin American Art at the San Antonio Museum of Art in San Antonio, Texas, and has also held curatorial positions at the New Orleans Museum of Art and at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian. At the MFA, she works with a wide range of artwork that includes decorative arts and sculpture from North America and Latin America, spanning over 3,000 years of history. Among her projects in development is a major reinstallation of the first floor of the MFA’s Art of the Americas wing, which will reopen in June 2026 to mark the U.S. Semiquincentennial. Dr. Abramovich Sánchez earned her B.A. from the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia and received her M.A. from the Sainsbury Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, United Kingdom. She holds a Ph.D. from the Latin American Studies and Art History joint doctoral program at Tulane University, New Orleans.
Zoom link
https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/1317598447136/WN_46M9xFavQk6VQtEB6chf1A
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Transferware Collectors Club Worldwide Lecture Series
From Stoke-on-Trent to Tehran: Wedgwood gifts for the court in Iran
Speaker: Fuchsia Hart
Thursday, January 15, 2026 1PM EST
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In 1810, the British East India Company (EIC) gave two large Wedgwood dining services to Fath ‘Ali Shah, then ruler of Iran. The services, one in the Japan pattern and the other in the Peony pattern, reportedly amounted to more than 600 pieces and cost the vast sum of £1300. These pieces, created through dialogue between the EIC envoy in Tehran and Fath ‘Ali Shah’s ambassador in London, were hybrid objects, melding British designs with ceramic forms more common in Iran. This talk will tell the story behind this lavish gift, exploring how the order was commissioned, drawing on documents still held in the Wedgwood archives.
Dr Fuchsia Hart has been the Sarikhani Curator for the Iranian Collections at the V&A since 2022. She holds a PhD in Asian and Middle Eastern Studies from the University of Oxford. Her thesis explored the shrine patronage of Fath 'Ali Shah Qajar (r.1797-1834) in Iran and Iraq. Currently, her other research and curatorial projects explore the wider courtly arts under Fath 'Ali Shah, embroidery traditions in Uzbekistan, and the collecting of lustre-glazed tiles from Iran in the UK.
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82575294997
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The English Ceramic Circle
Thrown Together... A meeting of the past and present
April 23, 2026
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They are delighted to be partnering with The London Potters to provide a day of ceramic demonstrations and lectures by leading potters and historical researchers.
Each speaker pairing comprises a demonstration by leading contemporary potters and a related discussion putting this work in a historical context, as follows:
Lives in clay:
Kate Malone MBE – My life in colour
Jonathan Gray – Horace Elliott (1851-1938)
Weaving new stories – Wedgwood and beyond:
Hitomi Hosono – my work with sprigs
Caroline McCaffrey-Howarth – Lady Charlotte Schreiber: a researcher, collector and benefactor
Royalty and Colonialism:
Rich Miller – Fired legacy – Colonialism and my designs (including the making of a crown)
Roger Massey – Crowns, Kings and other things – ceramics as a window into the 17th and 18th century world
The cost for attending the event is £35. Please note that lunch and refreshments are not included – there are various V&A cafés and restaurants and other eating places in the surrounding area.
Tickets are available now on the English Ceramic Circle website, here.
The Museum opens at 10am. Registration starts 10:15am, with welcome introductions planned for around 10:45am. The event will conclude around 5pm.
This event is available to members of either the ECC and/or the London Potters. At this stage, we are prioritising members. If you would like to attend and are not yet a member, we would advise joining one (or both!) groups. Early booking is advised, as initially each group has an allocation of 50 tickets.
The ECC/LP reserve the right to change the speakers should the need arise. Exact timings and a full running order will be confirmed in joining instructions.
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Transferware Collectors Club
2026 England Tour
June 2-9, 2026
Click here for more information and link to registration.
| | Please contact us if you know of any lectures with an emphasis on transferware. | | |
Adams Ceramics: Staffordshire Potters and Pots, 1779-1998 by Furniss, Wagner and Wagner
By studying primary source material, the authors have compiled the most authentic and readable record of the prolific Adams ceramic wares from England, including earthenware, bone china, jasper, stoneware, basalt, and Parian made over a 200 year period. Read more.
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CHINOISERIE: Printed British Ceramics in the Chinese Style 1750-1900, by Richard Halliday and Loren Zeller
It is a hardcover, 416-page book, 270 x 210 mm (10.6 x 8.27 in), with over 1450 color images. Published by Gomer Press, South Wales. Generous support from the TCC Richards Foundation Research Grant Program helped to make this book possible. More info. Read more.
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There are no auctions scheduled at this time.
Please contact us if you know of an auction with an emphasis on transferware.
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The online membership directory is a feature of our new program to improve members services. You must sign in to your account to view and search the directory. Please check your listing and make the appropriate changes in your account or transmit any corrections to the Member Chair. This list is for use of Transferware Collectors Club members only. It is intended to facilitate contacts between members. The list is not to be used for commercial purposes. If you are a current member and believe your name should be on this list please contact the Member Chair. View the directory.
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Please contact us if you have recommendations of
newly published transferware books.
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Has Your Postal Mailing Address Changed?????
If you have moved but are not receiving your printed TCC Bulletin, you probably forgot to notify our member chair of your new address (this applies to email address changes also). The bulletin is mailed “bulk” and is not forwarded to new addresses by the USPS. Please notify the member chair directly: membership@transferwarecollectorsclub.org or make the necessary changes to your account online.
| | MORE ABOUT TRANSFERWARE COLLECTORS CLUB | | |
CLASSIFIED ADVERTISEMENTS
We are now accepting simple classified (not display) advertisements from TCC member transferware dealers as well as non-dealer members and auction houses. There is no charge for this member service. Following are the criteria:
- Limited to three quality images of item(s) for sale or example(s) of an item(s) you wish to purchase.
- Include a very short description paragraph, including a link to your website and/or email address.
- Dealers must be TCC members, limited to once/year maximum.
- Requests will be processed in the order received, and there is no guarantee as to when your ad will be posted.
- The TCC Web Administrator at his/her discretion has the right to reject inappropriate or inadequate submittals.
Contact:
webadministrator@transferwarecollectorsclub.org
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The Database Needs Editors
Do you love a good mystery? Do you fancy yourself to be a Sherlock Holmes or Miss Marple? If your answer is "yes", then you are the perfect candidate to join the ranks of TCC Database Detectives! Download more information.
New Database Discoveries
Articles Needed
Please contact the web administrator with suggestions or contributions of future Database Discoveries articles. See Database Discoveries archives.
Contributions Needed for Bulletin
Bulletin editor Richard Halliday is seeking contributions for the upcoming bulletin.
Contact: bulletineditor@transferwarecollectorsclub.org.
| | | LOOKING for a FEW (MORE) DATABASE EDITORS | | Looking for anyone with a passion for the beauty and history of transferware who would like to help record lovely old patterns for a worldwide audience. The Database of Patterns and Sources is maintained by a team of the nicest people you'd ever want to meet. You could be one of them! We're currently looking for editors in Romantic patterns, Literature and Performing Arts, and Tiles, but let us know your interests and we can find a spot for you. Contact Len at otlink@aol.com for more information! | | SEEKING BULLETIN SUBMITTALS | | |
The TCC Bulletin editor seeks submittals to future editions, particularly from first time or occasional authors. We have an extremely knowledgeable member base, yet many of our members seldom or never share their knowledge, at least in printed form. Now is your chance. Bulletin submittals do not need to be extremely technical or lengthy. They just need to be interesting and relate to British transferware! And they need to be accompanied by quality images. We would especially welcome articles from our growing number of archaeologist members.
Don’t fret if you have little experience. We will be pleased to work with you, to formulate your concept and bring your article along. Simply send us your ideas, if that is where you are, or text, even in preliminary form, if you are further along. Please submit in MS Word format, and separately, images in png, pdf or jpeg format. Please do NOT convert to PDF. Don’t worry if this is a problem for you; we’ll work with you to bring your article from preliminary to final, printed, stage, no matter your level of computer and word processes experience. Download the Guidelines.
Suggested topics:
- Your favorite transferware piece, either your own or displayed elsewhere (why is it your favorite?, how did you acquire it?, what is the pattern, maker if known?).
- What is your favorite place to view transferware: museum? stately home? Historic or archaeological site?
- Tell (and show) us your own collection (really good pictures required).
- New discoveries.
- Archaeological sites: overall summary of the excavation as relates to transferware; discuss a particular pattern or piece; context/importance of the transferware.
- In-depth research of a pattern, series, maker.
Contacts:
David Hoexter, Interim TCC Bulletin Co-Editor: davidhoexter@icloud.com
Michael Sack, Interim TCC Bulletin Co-Editor: msack@michaelsack.com
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