Saucer with a portrait of Daniel Raap c. 1750

Curator: I find myself quite charmed by this rather unassuming, yet captivating piece. It's a porcelain saucer, dating back to around 1750, featuring a portrait of a gentleman identified as Daniel Raap. Editor: Well, I’ll be. At first glance, it looks like a porcelain cameo; an austere, almost judgmental chap peering out, encircled by flamboyant gilded swirls. There's a seriousness fighting against that rather Rococo frame, isn't there? It gives it this whimsical, almost subversive tone. Curator: Subversive is an interesting word. These so-called 'Orientalist' ceramics were highly prized objects traded between China and Europe. Displaying imagery that Europeans requested created all sorts of interesting cross-cultural translations. Portraiture especially had its own social codes and hierarchies, the rendering here has something almost democratic about it in that regard. Editor: Hmm, I see what you mean! This is no monarch; Daniel is busy, with pen and paper, a man of trade, perhaps. Even with the rococo swirl, that gesture of him at work makes it very interesting and direct. And, goodness, look at those hand-painted details on that decorative frame, but then his face— the brushstrokes almost mimic wrinkles, he's there in such immediacy, staring. The man has seen something. Curator: The sitter's gaze does demand your attention. Rococo portraiture served purposes that moved beyond mere likeness: social aspiration, status... To have this commissioned on a saucer implies an intention for intimate engagement in everyday domestic rituals. And those gold swirls you mention; the material circumstances that enabled porcelain production were far from equal and raise troubling historical realities that these refined objects obscure. Editor: So much in one little plate! To think of all the conversations this saucer could have listened in on! Maybe a spot of tea while deciding which ships go where next. Daniel’s steady, unrelenting gaze is fixed. He sits here on the rim of a teacup that’s no more than 20 years away from revolution. Curator: Precisely, a material witness to tremendous transformations that reordered political and social order! Editor: Definitely gives one pause over that next cup of tea.