Images(3)

Soup Plate

Dateca. 1760

OriginEngland, Bristol or Liverpool

MediumTin-glazed earthenware (delft)

DimensionsD: 8 3/4"; H: 1 3/4"

Credit LineMuseum Purchase

Object number1960-295

DescriptionDeep-welled plate with raised foot ring. Bluish tin glaze decorated with a squirrel, grapes, grapevines, and double-bracket fencing; on the rim, three repeats of the double-bracket motif with grapes and vines. Outlined in blue, leaves in mixed green, squirrel and flowers in yellow, grapes in orange. Brown edge.
Label TextMost English delft plates with the bracket and squirrel motif are blue and white, not polychrome. The plate here relates somewhat to the Japanese Kakiemon designs as copied at the Meissen porcelain manufactory and eventually on English porcelain. It also shows the influence of the Chinese blue and white designs usually adapted to or copied on this ware. See CWF accession 1978-216 for an example copied closely from Chinese porcelain examples.

A plate with a blue and white version of this pattern was excavated in Williamsburg at the James Geddy Workshop and Kitchen (19BB.1l70), and fragments with a similar design have been excavated at the William Finnie House (2BA.0824), southwest of the Chiswell-Bucktrout House (2GA.0043), and at Wetherburn's Tavern (9NA). A shard with a somewhat similar squirrel was excavated at Limekiln Lane in Bristol.
InscribedNo
MarkingsNo
ProvenanceTilley & Co., London