These simple, round salad plates represent one variant of Minton's "Aquarium" pattern, designed by William Coleman, one of Minton's premier artists of the aesthetic period.

In this arrangement, Coleman looks at the underwater world through Japanese-influenced eyes. Fish big and small cluster at the base of a plant whose fronds whiplash diagonally across the plate. The remainder of the surface is left void except for a few horizontal ripples, economically suggesting the watery depths. 

While many transfer patterns appealed to the aesthetic consumer by simply incorporating Japanese motifs, Coleman penetrates deeply into the Japanese mode of capturing nature in these aquatic studies. He defies the western tradition of nature depiction and china decoration, filling the plates with asymmetrical, spontaneous, unconventionally close-up views. The placement of the drawings on the plate is unprecedented in transferware. While "Aquarium" was produced in may variations, this blue version, with a hint of flow in the heavy printing, effectively conveys the quality of an Asian ink brush study.