While alphabet wares seem to have been viewed as casually as other souvenir and children's ceramics, the Brownhills potters approached their wares with an eye to making them fashionably artistic in the eyes of their late 19th century consumers.     

All of the Brownhills ABC series are decorated in brown transfer against an ivory body often enhanced with additional enamel highlights.. 

The "Famous Places" series uses a postcard format with rectangular and circular framed views of the 'Famous Places" -- in this case "Sidney Harbour" and 'Town Hall, Sidney."  

A diapered pattern provides the ground for an asymmetrical arrangement of the two views softened by a wandering floral vine highlighted in mauve and green.  The alphabet, interspersed around the arrangement completes the pattern.  

Despite the Australian views, inspiration for this plate must be credited just as strongly to Japan. The juxtaposition of overlapping views derives from a Japanese compositional strategy--found mostly on lacquerware--whose name translates as "contest of framed pictures." Unlike European style scenic transferware patterns that present a window onto the world, here the scenic elements are treated like two-dimensional images that have been framed, arranged, and applied to the flat surface of the plate. The floral sprigs that peak out from beneath the edges of the pictures enhance the illusion.