Pitcher 1847 - 1848

Curator: Welcome. Before us is a ceramic pitcher created by Fenton’s Works between 1847 and 1848, residing now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Editor: My initial impression is one of delicate stillness. The almost spectral whiteness combined with that lush floral relief lends it a dreamlike quality, as if plucked from a silent, antique garden. Curator: Exactly. The materiality itself is key. Parian ware, a type of porcelain, was specifically designed to mimic marble. This piece reflects aspirations of upward mobility prevalent at the time. A middle class eager to emulate the aristocracy, now with access to industrial production, could consume items like this. Editor: And those trailing floral designs! Flowers often stand for fleeting beauty, but in this context, that abundance strikes me as symbolizing fertility and growth—the blossoming of American industry and consumer culture. Curator: Certainly. These forms all speak to the Victorian era's fascination with naturalism and their capacity to render this natural world into reproducible decoration, for wider markets. It’s interesting to consider the labor involved in its creation too. Editor: True, there is a real contrast in my mind—a pitcher, designed for daily use but so adorned to signify special meaning, the beauty and utility, but also the sheer quantity of items being manufactured during this period in history. I think it reveals much about culture at that time. Curator: It absolutely prompts contemplation on how cultural meanings become embedded in, and then embodied by, everyday objects, thanks to this ceramic object and others just like it, this becomes art history. Editor: And these delicate symbols still whisper to us across the years, about who we once were. A lot of history, and potential cultural continuity exists even in our teacups.