plate
plate
Usage conditions apply
- Description
- China painting swept across America in the late nineteenth century as one of the most prevalent decorative pottery techniques, especially among young women. Considered a respectable form of work and creative outlet for women, china painting incorporated the element of hand craft that helped elevate standards of design during a period of mass production and industrialism. The technique of china painting could be done conveniently at home or in large pottery settings. Also known as “mineral painting,” after its materials, a china painter used enamels, low firing colors produced from various mineral-oxides, as a “painting” medium on pre-fired porcelain white porcelain, also known as blanks. These blank porcelain pieces were often imported from European countries, France and Germany in particular, and came in a variety of dinner ware forms and vases. The china painting technique of decorating porcelain was popularized in America by the highly influential Englishman, Edward Lycett. Trained as a potter in the English tradition at Spode pottery in Staffordshire, England, Lycett moved to America in 1861, where he almost immediately gained prestigious commissions for the White House and Tiffany & Co. His devotion to experimenting with materials and teaching pottery techniques across the country established Edward Lycett as the “pioneer of china painting in America” during his own lifetime. Ultimately, the creativity fostered by the china painting movement and the influence of Edward Lycett launched the American ceramic industry towards new and exciting avenues of decorative pottery.
- This plate, signed by Edward Lycett, was made and imported from France, a common practice in late nineteenth-century America. The American ceramic industry after the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial was just beginning to develop, but the mass-production of porcelain was not yet mastered. France, the center of fashion, made “blanks” or undecorated dinnerware forms and vase, to be exported to the American market for china painters to decorate. Edward Lycett, the “father of china painting in America” used porcelain blanks from France for many of his glaze experimentations. This porcelain plate, made in France, was hand painted by Edward Lycett with a gilt monogram in the center and a delicate lace pattern in gold along the rim. Dubbed by Lycett as a “specimen of hand work” he proudly scripted his name on the bottom.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Object Name
- Plate
- plate
- Object Type
- plate
- date made
- c. 1890-95
- c. 1875-1890
- maker
- Lycett, Edward
- place made
- United States: New York, Brooklyn, Greenpoint
- Physical Description
- gold (overall color)
- red (overall color)
- ceramic, porcelain, hard-paste (overall material)
- gilt (overall production method/technique)
- Measurements
- overall: 1 in x 9 in; 2.54 cm x 22.86 cm
- overall: 1 in x 9 1/16 in; 2.54 cm x 23.01875 cm
- ID Number
- CE.96471
- catalog number
- 96471
- accession number
- 30736
- Credit Line
- Gift of Edward Lycett
- See more items in
- Home and Community Life: Ceramics and Glass
- Art
- Domestic Furnishings
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
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