Platter, 10.5 x 8.5 inches. Brown transfer. Maker's mark for the Bovey Tracey Pottery Co. This classic Aesthetic pattern features a group of three cartouches laid over a branch of prunus blossoms and a blooming lotus stalk. The largest cartouche is shaped like a horizontal Japanese handscroll (emaki) and contains an image of a large shorebird on the edge of a body of water with irises and a songbird in flight above. Another cartouche is shaped like a Japanese uchiwa fan and contains an image of two songbirds perched on a branch of prunus blossoms. The final cartouche is circular and contains geometric and decorative forms. The border consists of a simple bamboo lattice.

The first pottery at Bovey Tracey was not on the site of the present pottery known under this name, but was carried on in some houses, which are parish property, near the modern railway station. The house is at present a carpenter's shop, and is at a corner just where the road turns off to the Bovey Heathfield. Tradition states that this pottery had mills to grind materials close to Bovey Bridge, and the remains of a mill and water-wheel existed on the left bank of the stream up to 1844. These works were carried on by a family of the name of Ellis; they were probably commenced in the earlier half of the 18th century and certainly were in work in 1755, and lasted for thirty years after that period. Nothing certain is known of the character of the ware of this first attempt at Bovey Tracey. Clay pipes are said to have been made, and jugs of a yellow body which are attributed to this period are to be found in houses in the neighborhood.
In 1842 the Bovey Pottery was purchased by two Devonshire gentlemen, Captain Buller and Mr. J. Divett, who enlarged the works, and obtained the lignite from underground workings. The supply of this substance, however, proving insufficient for the increased requirements of the manufacture, ordinary coal was substituted in its stead; and after the opening of a railway to the works, Somersetshire coal has been used to the entire exclusion of the lignite. The works were still carried on by Messrs. Buller and Divett, under the style of the “Bovey Tracey Pottery Company.” In general they were similar to those of the pottery district, and on the average five glost-ovens were fired each week. The ware consisted of all the ordinary services and articles in white, printed, and colored wares, and was principally supplied to the home markets in the West of England, and to Mediterranean ports.