Transfer printed earthenware

Blue transfer printed earthenware. The earliest examples of this pattern, known as the 'three-men-on-the-bridge' pattern, date from 1815. However the pattern was popular over a long period and this example is likely to date from the 20th Century. _x000D_ _x000D_ The two birds represent two lovers flying off together on the left is the roof of a house on an island to which the lovers escape. At the central lower point of the fragment a branch of a willow tree is depicted. The willow tree signifies sadness while the rounded 'leaves' on the right would have formed part of a tree behind the 'wealthy Mandarin's (father's) house'.