Thursday, June 12, 2008

PORTRAIT PLATES


Detail


If you are a lover of china and porcelain then you have no doubt happened upon a number of lovely portrait plates in antiques and collectibles shops. I love these beautiful masterpieces of decorative art and am always delighted by the vast array of different designs and subjects to be found among them. I found the Austrian portrait plate pictured above in an Antique Mall in South Carolina. I adore the pink border but the lovely scenery in the middle is mesmerizing.

Victorians were of course lovers of the ornate and quite fond of most decoration. Portrait plates were not unlike most other decorative plates of the period, which were intended to be displayed in China Cabinets and never intended to have food served on them.

The Victorians also had an affinity for adorning a variety of surfaces with images of beautiful, often almost ethereal ladies. Until approximately 1915-1920 the Art Nouveau images of women and/or historical figures decorated not only dishware but also postcards and book covers.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Such attention to detail!
So lovely.
Did you have fun on your holidays?
xo
Constance

Tess Kincaid said...

A treasure from your holiday!

So beautiful!!

I love pink, too. :)

Dorothy said...

Oh Rebecca..How beautiful....For a while I enjoyed collecting antique French and English porcelain pieces...(treasures) These type of things just speak to that more feminine part of our personality, I suppose :)

Lavinia said...

This plate is gorgeous---so delicately painted in such delicate, lovely hues. I do have a love of Victoriana....it seems to come in and out of fashion...but some aspects just endure, their popularity never waning...they idealized their ladies, didn't they, emphasizing the beautiful...I enjoy that..... Your plate is a treasure!