Plate 1745 - 1755

This plate was made in the 1700s by Joseph Flower from earthenware, covered with a tin glaze. It has an appealingly casual, hand-painted feel. But don't let this fool you: behind its creation are centuries of material refinement. Earthenware, like the very soil it comes from, is comparatively soft. To render it fit for practical use, and also for decoration, it must be coated. Here, tin oxide creates an opaque white surface on which the blue decoration, derived from cobalt, really pops. While Joseph Flower may have been an independent artisan, the reality is that ceramics were increasingly produced on a factory scale at this time. So this plate is a product of its moment – poised between the intimacy of craft and the efficiency of industrial manufacturing. Appreciating these dynamics allows us to understand more deeply the beauty of the object itself.