Images(2)

Plate

Dateca. 1720

OriginEngland, London

MediumTin-glazed earthenware (delft / delftware)

DimensionsOD: 8 5/8" OH: 1"

Credit LineMuseum Purchase

Object number1959-49

DescriptionShallow flat-bottomed plate without a foot ring. White tin-glaze decorated in polychrome with an interpretation of the Boscobel oak; tree trunk is painted in mixed green with sponged blue leafage; Charles II's head and 3 crowns in the tree painted in red as are the letters "C" and "R" painted on either side of the tree; concentric bands in blue encircle the central decoration.
Label TextThe future Charles II is said to have hidden in a large oak tree to escape capture by Cromwell's forces in 1651. The Boscobel oak became a symbol in the eighteenth century for the Jacobites, who wanted the Stuarts restored to the British throne.

The design for this and similar plates made during the first half of the century may have been inspired by a seventeenth-century blue-dash charger. It shows Charles's head and the head of Colonel Carlos similarly placed in an oak tree encircled by three crowns and is inscribed "The ROYALL OKE." The eighteenth-century examples have various rim decorations, this being a common one, and they date throughout the first half of the century.

Fragments of similar border bands have been excavated on several sites in Williamsburg, including the Play Booth Theater, the Levingston Kitchen (29AA.0335), and the Prentis House-Russell House (17DA.0671, 17DA.0804).

The London attribution of this example is based on the shape of the plate.
Inscribed"C R" painted on either side of the tree in the center of the well.
MarkingsNone
ProvenanceEx. Coll: Malcolm MacTaggart
Tilley & Co., 2 Symons Street, Sloane Square, London SW 3