Dish (Sweatmeat or pickle dish)

Description

During the mid to late 1700s the fashion for neoclassical design as well as an increased interest in natural history drove the creation of many seashell-themed designs. This shell-shaped dish was created for use on the dining table and likely originally was part of a set of similar dishes. These might be displayed open-side down, simply as a table ornament or open-side up to serve food. Depending on the course of the meal, such foods might include “dry” sweetmeats, such as dried fruit or candies, or savory ones, such as picked vegetables. This earthenware dish is of a type known as agateware and was intended to imitate patterns found in natural stone. Such stone, during the 1700s, was fashionable for use as inlays on objects, such as boxes, or in architectural settings. Ceramic agateware was produced in Staffordshire, England in lead-glazed earthenware (as shown here) and salt-glazed stoneware. Labor-intensive to produce, some agateware required kneading different colors of clay together before rolling it out and pressing it into molds. Careful cleaning of the surface exposed crisply defined colors. Presumably a bit less costly to consumers was agateware created by throwing multi-colored clays on the wheel, as was true for some beverageware at Winterthur (see 2024.0014.017 A, B). Period terms for agateware include "agate" and "marbled" typically followed by the object type (as in teapot).