Images(3)

Plate

Dateca. 1806

Marked by Spode, Ltd. 1770-1833

OriginEngland, Staffordshire

MediumLead-glazed earthenware (cream-colored earthenware / creamware)

DimensionsOH: 7/8"; OD: 10 1/16".

Credit LineMuseum Purchase, The Friends of Colonial Williamsburg Collections Fund

Object number2025-140

DescriptionPlate: royal shape creamware plate with six-lobed rim and no footring. The well transfer printed in black with a corvette at anchor on calm waters; the water painted with green enamels and the ship body with yellow; the rim below the ship is transfer printed with “Ship AMERICA Salem”. The reverse impressed “SPODE / 28”.Label TextThe transfer print on the well of this plate depicts the ship America, a commercial vessel that was converted to a private-armed corvette which saw action during the War of 1812. The ship was built in 1803-1804. The image on the plate is derived from Joseph Ange Antoine Roux’ 1806 portrait of the America at anchor in Marseilles. The plate was originally owned by Benjamin Williams Crowninshield (December 27, 1772 – February 3, 1851) who served as Secretary of the Navy under presidents James Madison and James Monroe from 1815 to 1818 and, within that role, commanded the ship which captured at least 26 British merchant vessels and was regarded as one of the fastest and most successful American sailing vessels. The plate descended in Crowninshield’s family, prosperous merchants and sea captains in Salem, Massachusetts.Mark(s)The reverse impressed “SPODE / 28”. The 28 is a flat presser's (plate maker's) mark.ProvenanceAround 1815, owned by Benjamin Williams Crowninshield (Salem, Massachusetts); presumably at his death in 1851 the plate descended in the family to Benjamin W. Crowninshield’s daughter Annie Casper Crowninshield Warren (Boston, Massachusetts) and then around 1905 to her daughter Rosamond Warren (RW) Gibson who died in 1934. Research is ongoing in order to determine when the plate left the family, but in 2022 it was sold by Lay’s Auctioneers (Penzance, Cornwall) to Martyn Edgell (Peterborough, England) who subsequently sold it to Robert Hunter (Yorktown, Virginia) in June 2025. In December 2025 Robert Hunter sold it to the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation (Williamsburg, Virginia) where it remains to the present.