Dish c. 1760

This dish was produced by the Worcester Royal Porcelain Company, its date unknown. Notice its leaf-like form, made of white porcelain and painted with birds and insects. Porcelain is a complex material. It demands exceptional skill to control during production. First, the clay is mixed and shaped, then fired at high temperatures, rendering it hard, white, and translucent. Decoration is then added through painting, and a final firing ensures durability. The very shape of this object—a veined leaf—would have required great skill to achieve, and the painted decoration would have been equally demanding. The Worcester Royal Porcelain Company were masters of this craft. The company mass-produced porcelain tableware, and similar luxury items, and they required many hands to complete. These ranged from highly skilled designers and painters to factory workers performing repetitive tasks. Considering the labor and materials involved, we can appreciate this dish as an object of both beauty and complex social history, challenging traditional distinctions between fine art and craft.