Ruins of immense grandeur, indicating past greatness and implying a lesson about the nature of time, dominate an otherwise pastoral landscape and dwarf the figures at the base of the columns. Nature provides a visual balance with the massive tree that frames the scene on the right. In between a river recedes to distant hills, and in the foreground cows are attended by herdsmen. The humans populating the scene go about their business, as indifferent as the cattle to the sight or implications of the ruins.

The "Lorraine" pattern is presented here on mid-size earthenware plates in a soft medium blue transfer under a pearlware glaze.

The particularly interesting border consists of panels featuring key elements of this and of many other classical landscapes--ruins and cattle. More unique is the engraver's choice to alternate the light and dark backgrounds of the panels--in a positive/negative fashion--creating a visual rhythm around the plate.

The title "Lorraine" refers not to the region, but to the seventeenth century French artist Claude Lorrain, admired at the time of the Adams design as representing the apex of classical landscape painting. (Constable in a lecture hailed him as "the most perfect landscape painter the world ever saw.")

The Adams design borrows a formula made famous by Lorrain: a deeply receding perspective framed by architectural ruins and the foliage of massive trees. The foreground is peopled by small-scale figures, sometimes classical, sometimes rustic. We have included an image of one of  the master's canvases that illustrates his use of these elements.