Plate

Art Historical Context

This elegant porcelain plate, crafted in France between 1815 and 1830, exemplifies the refined tableware of the Bourbon Restoration era. Measuring just 1⅝ inches high and 9⅜ inches in diameter, its shallow form was ideal for serving delicate dishes at formal dinners. Porcelain, a medium prized for its translucent whiteness and durability, represented a pinnacle of European ceramic innovation during this period, blending artistry with technical mastery achieved through high-fired kaolin clay. Historically, such plates emerged amid France's post-Napoleonic recovery, when luxury goods like these symbolized social status and cultural revival. French porcelain factories produced them in vast quantities for export, fostering transatlantic trade links that brought European elegance to American households. Displayed in The Metropolitan Museum of Art's American Wing, this piece—generously gifted by Mrs. Alan W. Carrick in 1967—highlights those cross-cultural exchanges, inviting us to imagine it gracing a 19th-century dining table amid candlelight and conversation.