Tile 1757 - 1761

This tile was made in Liverpool by John Sadler, around the mid-18th century. It's made of earthenware, with a printed decoration. The printing process is key here. It allowed for the relatively quick and efficient transfer of designs onto ceramics. Think about it – each tile could be identical, or subtly varied with different color applications. This was an early form of industrial production, and the images themselves often depicted fashionable scenes, like the one here. This combination of factors – reproducible imagery on a functional object – is significant for a number of reasons. Before this, ceramics were hand-painted or decorated, making them more expensive and time-consuming to produce. Printing democratized access to decorative objects. This tile, therefore, represents the intersection of art, craft, and industry, blurring the boundaries between them. It reminds us that the things we surround ourselves with are not just aesthetic objects, but also reflections of broader social and economic forces.