Plate, 9.75 inches diameter. Brown transfer. Printed and impressed maker's marks for the Willets Manufacturing Company.

The business that ultimately became the Willets Manufacturing Company began as the Excelsior Pottery of the William Young & Sons company. William Young was an English potter trained at Ridgway who emigrated to the Trenton area in pursuit of fortune. In 1857 he established the Excelsior Pottery. He maintained it in operation under his name until 1879. That year it was sold to the Willets Manufacturing Company.

Until recently, the Willets Excelsior Pottery was best known for its production of American Belleek. Initiated in the U.S. in 1882 by the nearby Ott & Brewer Pottery, American Belleek wes intended to bring the elegance of Belleek porcelain to the U.S. In 1886 the Willets brothers hired William Bromley Sr. from Ott & Brewer to initiate their own line of Belleek wares which went into production in 1887. In addition to imitating the shell-formed designs of Irish Belleek, he used the porcelain base for elaborate hand-painted decoration. This art pottery remained in production at Willets until the company was sold in 1912. Willets' successor, The New Jersey Pottery company, continued its manufacture for another two years before ceasing production entirely at the beginning of WWI in 1914.