This little pearlware motto plate fairly sings with its message, "Love and live Happy."  The simple directive is illustrated with images of equally simple childhood pleasures, a boy with his hoop and a girl petting her cat.

The decoration on the lightweight body is executed in a reddish brown transfer enhanced with quick strokes of red and green enamel.  Framing the motto, the flange is filled with a molded pattern of vines and flowers -- overlaid with  a second pattern of leaves and tendrils in  red and green enamel.  A stripe of deep red finishes the edge.

It is fairly impossible to speak of this genre of Victorian plates without using the now cliche phrase, "cheap and cheerful." Produced quickly and inexpensively, they were intended as trifles for the rising middle class--sold at open air markets and seaside haunts as well as by country peddlers. Frequently the distinction between adult and juvenile decoration was blurred; and frequently an uplifting or moralizing message was presented.  With the expansion of cheap rail travel, they became popular as souvenirs of happy holidays away from the cares of everyday life.

Made in quantity for a long period of time, these souvenir wares are difficult to date. The lightly potted earthenware body of this example suggests production during the second quarter of the nineteenth century.