Plate, 9.75 inches diameter. Black transfer with polychrome clobbering and gilding. Maker is Hall & Read. The registry diamond dates the registration of the pattern to 22 February 1883. Three cartouches (one round, one square and one partial square) are found on this plate. The central round cartouche contains a stag with a large rack of antlers in a rural scene with trees and other foliage. The two remaining cartouches are infilled with flowers. All three are surrounded with a lace-like ribbon border. On the left a large branch of blossoms completes the design.

Hall & Read are first recorded as earthenware manufacturers at the Wellington Works, Newport Street, Burslem in Keate’s Gazetteer of the Staffordshire Potteries published in December 1882. The Wellington Pottery seems to have been on a short lease to a number of potters before and after Hall & Read, who by 1883 had moved to Victoria Square, Hanley. Despite registering several ceramic designs, of which at least one is a fashionable competently produced pattern, the company was financially unsuccessful and was bankrupt by 1887. The London Gazette reported on 11 November 1887 that a deed of assignment had been made for creditors and cited Henry Hall of Withey Stakes, near Werrington in the county of Stafford, Earthenware Manufacturer and Metal Mounter, and Joseph Read of Hanley, in the same county, … lately carrying on business at the Victoria Works, Hanley aforesaid under the style of Hall and Read … Henry Hall, lately carrying on business as a Metal Mounter, at the New Hall Works, in New Hall-street Hanley. As a metal mounter no doubt Mr. Hall would have been adding Britannia metal lids to stoneware pieces such as jugs and biscuit barrels.