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Centrepiece
Unknown - Enlarge image
Centrepiece
- Place of origin:
Staffordshire, England (possibly, made)
Yorkshire, England (possibly, made) - Date:
1780-1790 (made)
- Artist/Maker:
Unknown (production)
- Materials and Techniques:
Moulded creamware (lead-glazed earthenware)
- Credit Line:
Bequeathed by Mrs Mary B. Sargeant
- Museum number:
CIRC.434-1967
- Gallery location:
British Galleries, room 118a, case 5
Object Type
This rare creamware object is an attempt to copy the porcelain centrepieces made in the 1750s and 1760s by the factories at Bow in London and elsewhere. Essentially two tiers of three shell dishes, it would have provided a practical and inexpensive means of dispensing sweetmeats and crystalised fruits.
Design & Designing
In addition to the pyramids of glass salvers loaded with jelly and custard glasses, the more fashionable dessert tables would often have included English porcelain centrepieces loaded with sweetmeats. The designer of this object, with its tiers of scallop shells, has looked back to these porcelain prototypes which were so typical of the English Rococo of the mid-18th century - a style, however, ill-suited to the plain buttery colour of early creamware. Curiously, this design does not appear in any of the Staffordshire or Yorkshire creamware manufacturers' catalogues, covering the period 1773 to about 1840.
