CategoriesTableware, Vessels, and Objects
Tableware
Dishes, serving pieces and glass for setting a table, from porcelain services and silver tureens to modern everyday ranges.
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About
The European dinner service took shape with porcelain. Meissen, near Dresden, made Europe's first hard-paste porcelain around 1710, and its modeller Johann Joachim Kändler produced the Swan Service (1737–41), more than two thousand pieces moulded with swans and shells. Vincennes, later moved to Sèvres, answered with soft-paste porcelain in brilliant ground colours. In the 19th century service à la russe, with courses brought in turn, multiplied the pieces a household needed.
Designers reshaped the table repeatedly. Christopher Dresser gave silver-plated tureens and toast racks geometric frames, Clément Massier glazed ceramics with iridescent lustres, and Gio Ponti designed porcelain for Richard-Ginori in the 1920s. Russel Wright's soft-edged pottery suited informal American meals, and Birger Kaipiainen painted fantasy flowers for Finland's Arabia factory. In Japan, meals have long been served on deliberately varied dishes chosen for the season. Look at marks, glazes and how pieces stack and pour.
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