Description:
English delft plate decorated in blue and purple powdered ground. The well has a central, roughly-shaped circular reserve with a long blue fish. The rim has three light blue fish with dark blue fins on a purple powdered ground. This fish motif was produced by all the delft pottery centers, and was a very popular design in the American colonies from the 1740's to the mid 1770's. There were advertisements in 18th century newspapers for "Fish Dishes and Strainers"; and fragments with fish on a powdered ground found at Williamsburg, Virginia and Portsmouth, New Hampshire. This plate was part of the Miss C. Alice Baker (1833-1909) Bequest, included in the contents of the Frary House. According to the file, the plate was given to Miss Baker by Mrs. Henry King Hoyt of Deerfield (born Catherine Wells, 1805-1891), listed in the Emma Lewis Coleman (1853-1942) Inventory #46 and 1963 Inventory #36. Powdered ground fish-bordered plates and a few other shapes, that have survived above ground, are known in some numbers. On one unusual plate, dated 1747, four fish are set against a powdered purple border that frames a reserve depicting the Crucifixion. Powdered manganese ground tableware and punch bowls depicting fish appear to have been very popular in eighteenth-century America. Early orders for such wares survive, and fragments of these ceramic forms have been excavated from colonial contexts at archaeological sites up and down the east coast.
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