Fecundity Dish

Date1661

MediumTin-glazed earthenware (delft)

DimensionsL: 19 5/8"

Credit LineMuseum Purchase

Object number1962-123

DescriptionLarge charger with stepped foot ring and wide embossed rim. Lead glaze on the back; white tin glaze on the front decorated in polychrome with figures of Adam and Eve under a tree. Outlining and background in blue; tree trunk in brown; foliage in a mixed green of antimony over copper; bosses, apples, snake, hair, and shading of bodies in yellow with orange detailing.
Label TextThis is the most common of the several designs in English delft copied from lead-glazed wares made by the sixteenth-century French potter Bernard Palissy. The very subtle relief decoration here is too subtle to make any sense on a piece with such a thick tin glaze. Identical decoration appears on at least some of the Palissy examples, suggesting that the English ones were cast from a mold made from the earlier French models. With its 1661 date, this dish falls right in the middle of the seventeen dated examples of the fecundity motif recorded by Lipski and Archer, which range from 1633 to 1697. Several of these also bear the arms of a London company. The Worshipful Company of Broderers was responsible for professional embroidery in England beginning in the mid-sixteenth century. Fragments of a similar dish have been excavated at the Rotherhithe pottery site. The date on the piece here corresponds to the date of the probable move of that factory to Still Stairs.
InscribedThe arms of the city of London and of the Broderers' Company, and the inscription "RNE 1661." The same date, with scrolls and flowers, in blue on the back.
MarkingsNo
ProvenanceSir Joh Evans
Mrs. W. D. Dickson
Tilley & Co., London