Teapot with commedia dell'arte decoration, England, Staffordshire, 1765 – 1770, hard earthenware, Princessehof National Museum of Ceramics (on loan from Ottema-Kingma Stichting).
Around 1750 the English invented something new: the transfer printing technique. With this technique it was possible to print decorations directly onto the smooth creamware. This was much cheaper than painting by hand. This teapot is an early example of the application of such a printing decoration.