Covered soup tureen with stand c. 1825

This covered soup tureen with stand was made by Spode around 1776. A Stoke-on-Trent company synonymous with British bone china, Spode's wares speak to the global aspirations of the English during a time of vast colonial expansion. Consider how the soup tureen functions as a cultural artifact. What does it mean to bring an object like this into your home? Porcelain, with its delicate beauty, became a marker of status and taste. The patterns of lush florals, hand-painted with painstaking detail, evoke the allure of the exotic East, a popular aesthetic in European design at the time. What is the relationship between fine dining and national identity? As you admire the tureen, think about how its beauty intertwines with the complex stories of trade, empire, and the making of taste.