Platter c. mid 19th century

Curator: Here we have a "Platter" produced around the mid-19th century by the Staffordshire Potteries, currently held at The Art Institute of Chicago. Editor: It’s so…blue. And peaceful. A pastoral dream contained in a ceramic dish. I can almost smell the damp earth and hear distant birdsong. Is that terribly sentimental? Curator: Not at all. The monochrome palette does lend itself to a certain wistful quality. Notice the landscape depicted: the idealized estate with its grand house, the serene grazing animals. Editor: And those swirling floral motifs around the edges… it's a controlled sort of chaos. What's interesting is the implied narrative; the estate is presented in a seemingly idyllic moment frozen in time, even if it never existed. Curator: Precisely! Transferware pottery like this wasn't about replicating reality. It presented an aspirational vision of life, playing on social yearnings and notions of idealized British life at that time. Mass production meant that even middle-class households could afford these scenes. Editor: A packaged dream, ready to serve. The blue is interesting as well. Its dominance kind of flattens the perspective somehow, makes everything feel equally present and absent. It feels otherworldly in a way despite depicting such earthly imagery. Curator: Blue was a popular color because the cobalt pigment held up well in the firing process. Its widespread use created a visual language closely tied to that period of transferware pottery and English décor. It signifies much more than color—class and industrial development as well. Editor: I suppose looking at this, then, is looking at how our own present is packaged through artifice. To have something displayed in our homes which points to where we thought we would want to be as a society. Strange how something utilitarian as a plate can open into questions of memory and value. Curator: It is indeed. By examining pieces such as this one, we open conversations of how the creation and circulation of images influences desires and defines value within specific cultures and points in time.