Plate

Description

The Winterthur collection includes a bread plate (2011.0020.001) and soup plate (.002) from one of three services ordered by the Manigault family of Charleston, South Carolina. These objects are from a service in hand-painted sepia enamels, ordered by Charles Izard Manigault (1795–1874). The order includes the description “My Dinner Set of China with Arms & crest Painted Brown, Purchased at Canton 1820,” and the 381-piece service featured a variety of plate sizes, serving dishes, bowls, cups and saucers. Portions of the service descended in the Manigault family. (See In Pursuit of Refinement: Charlestonians Abroad 1740–1860, pp. 138, 293 and cat. No. 141.) Christina Nelson, in Directly from China: Export Goods for the American Market, 1784–1930 (pp. 78–79) writes of a plate from the service, noting that the arms copy Manigault’s bookplate, which was engraved by Samuel Clayton in Australia. Quoting Manigault, she writes, "I had some of my visiting cards engraved by one of those talented convicts S. Clayton of New South Wales. By placing my signature with its usual flourish in his hand, he imitated it and engraved it perfectly, for he was sent here from England for forging...He also diod several hundred of my Coat of Arms, now my bookplates." Nelson also discusses other Manigault services with variations on the arms. An oil portrait of Charles Izard Manigault, dated 1817, was completed by Thomas Sully (1783 – 1872) in the style of Lawrence. The portrait currently is owned by the Gibbes Museum of Art, (1956.04.23) in Charleston. (See Charlestonians Abroad, p. 35.)