Set of Five English Delftware Plates Painted with a Lady in a Landscape

Tin-glazed earthenware plates, each painted in a bright cobalt palette with a standing lady holding leafy sprigs within a hilly landscape, framed by sponged and stippled tree-masses and a banded foreground; the cavetto and rim washed with the characteristic Bristol sponged cobalt to create deep, cloud-like borders. The reverses are tin-glazed and plain with a narrow footrim.
This popular “lady in a landscape” type—derived from Dutch pastoral prints and adapted for the English market—occurs most convincingly at Bristol in the last quarter of the seventeenth century. The powdered/sponged cobalt borders and the soft, painterly trees are hallmarks of Bristol workshops, contrasting with the harder outlining and flatter washes typical of Lambeth. The lively, slightly naïve figure painting and repeated composition suggest production in a single shop for table services.