Plate 1747 - 1750

Editor: Here we have a pewter plate made by Francis Bassett I, sometime between 1747 and 1750. The plate resides here at the Met in New York. It feels so… functional, almost humble. I wonder what you see in this seemingly simple piece of earthenware? Curator: Oh, but is anything ever *just* a plate, my friend? Look closer. It's worn. Every scratch, every little imperfection tells a story of meals shared, of hands washing it, of its place in someone's everyday life nearly 300 years ago. Imagine the hands that held it, the food that graced its surface! Isn’t that poignant? Editor: That's beautiful, actually. I hadn't considered the plate as a vessel for memory. So, are you saying its value lies not in its pristine condition, but in its… history etched in the surface? Curator: Precisely! The utilitarian transformed into the beautiful precisely *because* of its journey through time. It wasn’t displayed in a glass cabinet, untouched. It was *used*. And to me, that's endlessly more fascinating than perfection. I imagine someone, somewhere used this every day without ever knowing their dishware would ever amount to art. A thought! Don’t you agree? Editor: That truly shifts my perspective. It makes me wonder about the lives intertwined with such an object. And how every object holds an implicit memory that tells the story about the human condition. Curator: Indeed, and perhaps the everydayness, elevated to museum piece, allows us to better connect to lives of the past. Food for thought, served on a pewter plate! Editor: Wow, I'll never look at a plate the same way again!