This is a pair of very rare and beautiful shell dishes made by Worcester around 1770 in their 1st or "Dr Wall" period. The dishes have one scrolled handle and have a shell-like shape, hence the name shell dishes. They are decorated with a fresh "French green" (teal) dentil stencil pattern and a stylised flower with gilt foliage in the centre.
 
Simon Spero and John Sandon write on page 208 in their book "Worcester Porcelain 1751-1790 - The Zorensky Collection", accompanied by plate 237 with a similar plate: "This design in so-called "French Green" may have been inspired by stencilled decoration which occurs on some Continental faience." When you look carefully at the surface of the enamel decoration, it certainly seems like it was applied with a stencil rather than a brush.
 
Shell dishes like these formed part of large dessert services and were used for fruits or trifle; their handle lends them well to being passed around the table. Each dessert service would have 2 or 4 of these dishes.
 
The Worcester Porcelain Company was one of the first potteries in Britain to produce porcelain. Alongside other great potteries such as Derby, Chelsea and Bow, they pioneered a new industry that would grow out to be huge in the following century. This plate is from the first period, which is often called the "Dr Wall" period after its founder. In later years Worcester went through many different ownerships and styles, and ultimately it became the Royal Worcester factory that only finished operation in the early 21st Century.
 
This beautiful plate has been potted in Worcester's famous early porcelain, which is rather warm to the touch as it contained a quantity of soap rock. The plate is gently lobed and decorated with a blue scale ground. You can clearly see why this is called "blue scale"; it consists of a pattern that looks like fish scales. This is to hide the fact that at the time they were not able yet to create a smooth blue ground; this way the fact that the blue colour, applied under the glaze, was runny (or "flow blue") is nicely taken advantage of. The reserves, which have beautiful gilt scroll borders, have been painted very finely with an abundance of flowers.
 
The plate is marked on the underside with the underglaze blue square fret mark that Worcester used at the time, and which is an imitation of Chinese marks.
 
CONDITION REPORT The dishes are in perfect antique condition without any damage, repairs or crazing, and only very minimal wear, as visible in the pictures.
 
Antique British porcelain is never perfect. Kilns were fired on coal, and this meant that china from that period can have some firing specks from flying particles. British 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. Etcetera - I try to be as accurate as I can and please feel free to ask questions or request more detailed pictures!
 
DIMENSIONS 19.5cm (7.75") diameter