Plate
Dateca. 1790
OriginEngland, Staffordshire
MediumLead-glazed earthenware (china glaze / pearlware)
DimensionsOH: 13/16"; OD: 10"
Credit LineMuseum Purchase
Object number2025-55
DescriptionPlate: circular plate with broad slightly upturned rim, curved cavetto and no footring. Decorated in underglaze blue: the rim painted with a diaper or lattice border between a single blue band near the rim of the plate and a band of double concentric lines near the cavetto. The well also painted in blue with a version of what is often referred to as the Chinese House pattern: the central scene with a tiered house or pagoda between two trees and within a fenced and stylized landscape. Three sets of trivet marks arranged around the back of the rim.Label TextChina glaze or pearlware dishes decorated with variations of a stylized house or pagoda have been found archaeologically up and down the Eastern seaboard. The pattern was popular among Staffordshire potters and British and American consumers in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. It is seen on shell-edged plates, as well as on dishes with other rim decoration such as this example. Fragments painted with the border on this plate along with variations of the Chinese House pattern have been recovered from shipwreck sites, such as the HMB DeBraak, a British brig-sloop that sank off the coast of Delaware in May 1798.Inscription(s)NoneMark(s)NoneProvenancePrior to 2025, unknown. In May 2025 Peg Lockwood Antiques (Zuni, Virginia) sold it to the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation (Williamsburg, Virginia) where it remains to the present.
