Fruit Dish

Chinese export porcelain was one of the luxuries deemed essential to a well-appointed eighteenth-century house. Until 1784, when direct trade began between China and America, Chinese porcelain came to the colonies by way of Europe. The overglaze floral decoration on this service, made for Samuel and Judith (née Commelin) Verplanck of New York, is entirely European. Were it not for its unbroken family history, the close relationship of the design to that on Meissen porcelain would suggest that it had been made for the German or Scandinavian market. The service was presumably ordered for the Verplancks’ house at 3 Wall Street, where they lived from 1763 until 1803.