Dish ring
Unidentified Dublin maker W. H.
Not on view
This dish ring is a refined example of an emblematic Irish form. Such rings were used on the dining table as a base for a larger bowl or plate that was laden with beautifully arranged food; as a seventeenth-century writer explained “to make the feast look full and noble.” A series of rings of different heights made for a prosperous but not necessarily an aristocratic table, it does not have engraved eighteenth century armorials; the initials AR were likely engraved in the 19th century. Nonetheless, the piece beautifully represents Ireland’s embrace of the Neoclassical architectural vocabulary and the austerity and simplicity with which it was expressed in silver.
[Ellenor M. Alcorn, 2014]
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