The architectural capriccio, the fantasy combination of images of known and imaginary structures, is a long-established tradition in European landscape painting, prints, and decoration. Here a fragmentary classical colonnade, an altar with a river god statue, and a stone pyramid (reminiscent of the Caius Cestius pyramid in Rome) stand check-to-jowl in an otherwise placid rural setting. Appealing to Romantic as well as Neo-classical interests, the artist has included a peasant herdsman and his goat pausing by a stream that leads to a rustic cottage and ruined bridge. 

The scenic confection--perhaps intended to evoke the Roman compagna, a favorite setting of period romances--is executed in soft medium blue transfer printing on a pearlware blank. A trail of small scenes around the border compliments the pattern's combination of ancient and bucolic motifs.

A.W. Coysh documents this pattern in his Blue-Printed Earthenware 1800-1850, basing the attribution to Thomas Lakin on a marked example in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum. The remaining element of doubt is the possibility that more than one potter produced the pattern (pp. 106-7).

Our final image provides an example of the architectural capriccio in painting, by one of the masters of the genre, Giovanni Paolo Panini.