Soup Plate from the "Hope Service" Made for the Duke of Clarence c. 1792

This soup plate, from the "Hope Service," was crafted by the Worcester Royal Porcelain Company for the Duke of Clarence. Made for a member of the British aristocracy, it reflects the aesthetic values and the social hierarchies of the time. The central image shows a lone woman standing by the sea gazing out at a distant ship. Is she waiting for someone to arrive, or disappear forever? Consider the themes of longing and expectation, so central to life in a seafaring nation, where ships signified both connection and departure. The plate’s idealized female figure can be seen as an emblem of the anxieties and hopes tied to Britain’s maritime power, as many women were left on land without their husbands who were out at sea. This plate not only served a culinary purpose, but acted as a tableau of national identity, intimately connecting power, gender, and the vast, often heartbreaking, ocean.