Dish 1690 - 1710

This 17th century Staffordshire pottery dish, "Dish," is a fine example of English slipware. The central design depicts a red-brown phoenix, a symbol of rebirth and immortality, surrounded by a ring of stylized human heads and the repeated letters “R” and “W.” The rim of the dish is decorated with brown and white slip in a technique known as “sgraffito,” a type of decorative art in which a design is created by scratching through a layer of colored slip. This dish, created in the Staffordshire potteries of England, showcases the skills of the anonymous potters who created this distinctive type of English pottery.