Object Type
When in the early 19th century English pottery and porcelain dinner services entirely superseded those imported from China, they were increasingly modelled on silverware, with wavy and heavily-moulded rims. With the refinement of eating habits, extra types, like this comport for fruit or dessert, were added to services.

Collectors & Owners
This fruit dish is part of a service that was acquired by the V&A from Miss H. M. Gulson, who had inherited it from her uncle, Josiah Spode IV (1823-1893). Although the Museum wished to accept only a token number of pieces, because of the impossibility of displaying the service in its entirety, eventually they agreed to take it all, rather than destroy the integrity of a documented service. Since 1902 it has largely remained in store, although parts of the service have in recent years been loaned to 10 Downing Street. The British Galleries now provide a fitting permanent display of the many different shapes used in the service.

The Spode family provenance suggests that the service should represent the grandest and most opulent porcelain made at the factory at Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, in the last years of Spode ownership. The factory archives, now available to collectors, show that the moulded shape called 'Royal Embossed' was first made about 1831. This date exactly agrees with the introduction of the painted pattern (No.4964). It would seem therefore that Josiah Spode IV, only eight years old in 1831, may have inherited the service later from his own father, Josiah Spode III.