Plate

ca. 1780-1820 (made)
Artist/Maker
Place of origin

Plate of hard-paste porcelain painted with enamels and gilded. Circular with a waved edge. In the centre, on an oval panel painted in grey camaïeu on a puce ground, is the figure of a man standing by an altar with a staff in his right hand. The panel is framed in a gilt cable border. The rim is decorated with a blue rocaille border within a plain gilt fillet. Sprigs of flowers and small fruits are scattered over the plate.

Object details

Categories
Object type
Materials and techniques
Hard-paste porcelain painted with enamels and gilded
Brief description
Plate of hard-paste porcelain, Doccia porcelain factory, Doccia, ca. 1780-1820.
Physical description
Plate of hard-paste porcelain painted with enamels and gilded. Circular with a waved edge. In the centre, on an oval panel painted in grey camaïeu on a puce ground, is the figure of a man standing by an altar with a staff in his right hand. The panel is framed in a gilt cable border. The rim is decorated with a blue rocaille border within a plain gilt fillet. Sprigs of flowers and small fruits are scattered over the plate.
Dimensions
  • Diameter: 32.4cm
Gallery label
(ca. 1995)
Plate
Porcelain
ITALY (DOCCIA); about 1780-1790
Gift of Mr L.O. Van Oss
C.30-1955
(Label draft attributed to John V. G. Mallet, ca. 1995)
Credit line
Given by Mr L.O. Van Oss
Subjects depicted
Bibliographic reference
Frescobaldi Malenchini, Livia ed. With Balleri, Rita and Rucellai, Oliva, ‘Amici di Doccia Quaderni, Numero VII, 2013, The Victoria and Albert Museum Collection’, Edizioni Polistampa, Firenze, 2014 pp. 112-113, Cat. 103 103. Plate with fruit, flowers and a cameo 1780-1820 hard-paste porcelain with a tin-glaze painted in colours and gold diam. 32 cm no mark inv. C.30-1955 gift: Mr L.O. Van Oss This plate is decorated with a figure in the center in monochrome grey on a violet ground imitating a cameo surrounded by scattered polychrome fruits and flowers. This type of decoration started to be used at Doccia towards the end of the Second Period (1758-1791) and can probably be identified in the documents written between 1780 and 1788 with “con fiori e frutta sparsa” (with scattered flowers and fruit). The type of border used here is usually described in the inventories as “French style lobed edge with a saw-tooth motif in blue and gold on the rim” (BIANCALANA 2009, p. 166). The fruit and flowers motif continued to be used in the first quarter of the 19th century when the factory was under the direction of Carlo Leopoldo Ginori Lisci, as shown by the inventories in which, in 1812, the decorator Luigi Ristori is mentioned as having painted a decoration with fruit and flowers (AMD, Registro, vol. I, c. 103, 14 October 1812). A plate similar to this one was sent as a gift to Alexandre Brongniart at Sèvres in 1820 (I wish to thank Oliva Rucellai for this information, AMD, Registro, vol. XIII, c. 34, 10 August 1820; inv. MNC 763.3, Museum of Sèvres) and therefore this type of decoration was still being used at that time. Due to the presence of tin-glaze on this plate, the body can be identified as masso bastardo, a hard-paste porcelain clay in which the grey colour was masked by a thick white glaze, in use starting in 1761 (cat. 63 and BIANCALANA 2009, p. 230-231). For a soup tureen belonging to the same set, see LIVERANI 1967, plate LXXXI. A. d’A. Bibliography: unpublished
Collection
Accession number
C.30-1955

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Record createdJune 24, 2009
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