Footed Dish (soucoupe à pied)
Medium
soft-paste porcelain with enamel and gilt decoration
Dimensions
4 × 22.4 cm
Classification
Ceramic
Department
Decorative Art and Design
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Credit
The Norweb Collection
Accession Number
1983.55
Tags
malegender unknown
About this artwork
These dishes may have supported cups of sweet ices or pyramidal displays of fruits or sweetmeats as part of a dessert or tea service. On the reverse of the plate the two birds pictured are identified as a Petit Perruche, du Pérou (budgerigar from Peru) and Harle huppé, Mâle (male red-breasted merganser.) Their images were modeled after engravings in naturalist Georges-Louis Leclerc’s Natural History of Birds, a book which regularly inspired Sèvres porcelain paintings in the 1780s and 90s.