Fruit or chestnut basket and stand

Description

Pierced "baskets" including the example shown here, would have been appropriate for use during the second course of a dinner--which often included sweet dishes and/or fruit and nuts--or at the dessert course. Objects of this type were produced in nearly all types of refined ceramics, whether earthenware, stoneware or porcelain. As well as in Britain, such wares were made in Continental Europe and Asia. In terms of its printed ornament, variations on the "Net Pattern," featuring netted grounds as well as floral motifs, chinoiserie pavilions-in-landscapes reserves and floral borders were made at several factories in England. In Staffordshire, the Spode, Job Ridgeway, John and William Ridgeway, John Denton Bagster (or Baxter), and other factories created versions of the design. Factories in Liverpool, Lancashire, also created Net Patterns, including at the Seacombe and Herculaneum potteries. The example shown here is from Herclaneum and features the impressed mark of that factory. (Winterthur is grateful to The Transferware Collectors Club for research support provided by the Paul and Gladys Richards Research Grant Program for Studies in British Transferware.)