The floral design on this dish is painted in a style and colouring associated mainly with Liverpool delftware. The distinctive palette, which complements the greyish-white glaze, comprises sage-green, yellow, blue, and orangered, pale purple and black. These colours were derived from the same metallic oxides as the traditional polychrome delftware colours. The difference lies in their tone and in the balance of the colour combinations. Blue is noticeably less prominent and green more so.

These colours have become known as ‘Fazackerly colours’ because they were first recorded on two mugs, initialled respectively ‘TF1757'and ‘CF1758’, which were said to have been made for Thomas and Catherine Fazackerly at Samuel Shaw's pottery in Liverpool. In 1854 their son sold them to the collector, Joseph Mayer, who described them in his History of the Art of Pottery in Liverpool, 1855, and gave them to the Liverpool Museum. Unfortunately the mugs were destroyed during the Second World War, but water-colours showing their attractive floral decoration have survived at Liverpool City Museum.