Dish after 1760

This charming dish was made at the Chelsea Factory, one of the leading porcelain manufacturers in 18th-century England. It’s made of soft-paste porcelain, a tricky material to work with because of its high firing temperature and tendency to warp. Look closely, and you’ll see that the dish is molded in the form of a vine leaf, with grapes and other botanical motifs applied on the surface. These details weren’t painted, but crafted in three dimensions and affixed to the main form. The decorators at Chelsea were clearly going for a naturalistic effect. The factory specialized in luxury wares like this, and this tells us something about the growth of a consumer culture at this time. Porcelain was still a relatively new technology in Europe, a status symbol associated with wealth and refinement. It required highly skilled labor to produce, and was thus a prestige item. Considering this dish, we can see how much labor and skill went into even a single object. It’s a reminder that all works of art, however decorative, have a social history embedded in their making.