Superb Minton Aesthetic Period Pierced Porcelain Plate W.S. Coleman Fairy & Squirrel c.1873

A fabulous Victorian aesthetic period porcelain cabinet plate by Minton, with reticulated rim with six oval roundels. Superbly painted by Willian Stephen Coleman, a delightful scene of a fairy with beautiful butterfly wings. Stood on a grassy mound, he is trying to capture a squirrel sat on the branch of a small oak tree. He is offering out acorns to the squirrel whilst clutching to his side a small cage with the door open ready. Signed Coleman at the bottom. The pierced rim border is coloured with a celeste blue ground and very finely edged inside each reticulation with gilt. The roundels have raised spoke and beaded gilding and inside this section is a gilt layered fish scale border. Finished with a gilt rim. The reverse bears the impressed Minton factory mark, Victorian registration lozenge, artist monogram for the gilding, design number, and retail stamp for W. P. & G Phillips, Art Pottery Studios, 359 Oxford Street, London, the stamp itself in aesthetic style as a pair of Japanese fans. The Minton date cypher can't be read but the registration mark is dated for 1870, an early piece decorated by Coleman before he moved to direct the Minton Art Studio in London in 1871, where he then specialised in earthenware. References: The Dictionary Of Minton, Atterbury & Batkin; Minton - The First Two Hundred Years Of Design & Production, Jones. Also in the latter, page 58 shows a cup and saucer with this same stunning hand pierced and gilded border, the body decorated by Christopher Dresser (attributed).