Moon flask with gold butterfly and wheat motifs
1880s
Medium
Bone china
Dimensions
confirmed: 11 1/4 × 9 5/8 × 2 15/16 in. (28.6 × 24.4 × 7.5 cm)
Classification
Ceramics-Porcelain
Culture
British, Worcester
Department
European Sculpture and Decorative Arts
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Gift of Helene Fortunoff and Robert Grossman, 2017
Accession Number
2018.62.111
Rights
Public Domain
Art Historical Context
This elegant moon flask, crafted at the Worcester factory in the 1880s, exemplifies the refined taste of late Victorian Britain. Made of luminous bone china—a material invented in England in the mid-18th century for its strength and delicate translucency—the vessel features a distinctive flattened circular form inspired by ancient Middle Eastern prototypes. Its surface is adorned with delicate gold motifs of butterflies and wheat, evoking themes of transformation and natural abundance that resonated with the era’s fascination for symbolic decoration. Worcester’s porcelain makers were renowned...
About the Artist
Worcester factory · 1751–2008
The Worcester porcelain factory, established in 1751 in Worcester, England, by physician Dr. John Wall and apothecary William Davis along with 14 partners, marked the birth of one of Britain's most enduring ceramic enterprises. Investing £4,500 at Warmstry House on the River Severn, the founders drew on contacts with the Bristol porcelain manufactory to develop a novel soft-paste porcelain using s...