This is a beautiful oval dish or stand made by Flight in Worcester probably around the year 1785. The dish is decorated with a mazarine and gilt rim and has beautiful hand painted flower sprays. It carries an underglaze open crescent mark.
This dish has a sharp well so it is likely that it served as a stand to a sauce tureen or chestnut basket, but it would do perfect service as a dish for vegetables, fruit or baked goods.
The famous 18thC Worcester Porcelain factory was sold to John Flight in 1783. Flight had to confront a lot of problems with the kilns and initially did not bring out any radical new designs, but continued the popular Worcester designs. That this dish is from the challenging mid-1780s can be seen from the quality of the glaze; it is not completely smooth and has what the kilnsmen called "mouse droppings"; small black specs in the glaze. This was caused by excess sulphur in the kilns that took a number of years to fix. In 1792 Martin Barr joined as a partner and in the decades to follow the factory went through various iterations of Flight & Barr partnerships. This was the beginning of a very prosperous era that would last until 1840, when the factory was sold to Chamberlains Worcester, eventually resulting in the Royal Worcester that many of us are familiar with in more recent times.
This beautiful bowl has a pleasing, slightly lobed shape; the decoration consists of a mazarine blue rim with very fine gilding and it has finely hand painted floral sprays over the body. The bowl is marked on the underside with an underglaze Worcester open crescent mark.
CONDITION REPORT: The bowl is in excellent antique condition without any damage, repairs or crazing other than a couple of very old chips off the foot rim, which might very well be from production and are hardly visible when in position. There are a few tiny spots of rubbing to the gilt rim as visible in the pictures.
Antique porcelain is never perfect. Kilns were fired on coal in the 1700s, and this meant that china from that period can have some firing specks from flying particles. Makers were also known for their experimentation, and sometimes this resulted in technically imperfect results. Due to the shrinkage in the kiln, items can have small firing lines or develop crazing over time, which should not be seen as damage but as an imperfection of the maker's recipes, probably unknown at the time of making. Items have often been used for many years and can have normal signs of wear, and gilt can have signs of slight disintegration even if never handled. I will reflect any damage, repairs, obvious stress marks, crazing or heavy wear in the item description but some minor scratches, nicks, stains and gilt disintegration can be normal for vintage items and need to be taken into account.
There is widespread confusion on the internet about the difference between chips and nicks, or hairlines and cracks. I will reflect any damage as truthfully as I can, i.e. a nick is a tiny bit of damage smaller than 1mm and a chip is something you can easily see with the eye; a glazing line is a break in the glazing only; hairline is extremely tight and/or superficial and not picked up by the finger; and a crack is obvious both to the eye and the finger.
Dimensions: 23.5cm X 17.5cm (9.25" X 7") diameter and 5cm (2") high.
Flight Worcester dish or stand, mazarine blue with floral sprays, ca 1785
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