I have been increasingly aware lately of a number of "rare" pieces turning up on eBay that are supposedly produced by Bridgewater.  There are 2 pieces in particular which have drawn my attention that keep appearing and these are the rather ornate, wedge-shaped butter dishes with the handle and the large, round cheese domes - both sporting the lithographs from the Bridgewater "Dairy" range, plus some odd, gilt flourishing added.

Since these pieces didn't have the simple and clean, classic lines of Bridgewater pottery and basically just "didn't look right", I made some investigations and contacted Bridgewater themselves.

Apparently, a while ago, some of the authentic Matthew Rice lithograph transfers managed to get into the wrong hands and ended up on items of pottery that did not originate from the Bridgewater factory.  Since the backstamp was copied also, it gave the pieces a certain air of (false) authenticity.

As well as the butter dish and cheese dome, there is also an odd-shaped jug with a blue version of the lithographs on to watch out for.  I must point out at this stage that there are also GENUINE  Bridgewater jugs and butter dishes from the range, but these have the usual, black transfers on and are the normal style and design.

There is a section in the "Emma Bridgewater" book by Steven Jenkins on page 119 which gives a very good account of these aforementioned pretenders.