dessert fork, Saint Cloud Manufactory

Artwork Overview

Saint Cloud Manufactory, dessert fork
Saint Cloud Manufactory, dessert fork
Saint Cloud Manufactory
dessert fork
circa 1710–1720
dessert fork, circa 1710–1720
Where object was made: France
Material/technique: soft paste porcelain; silver
Dimensions:
Object Height/Width (Height x Width): 18.4 x 1.9 cm at widest point
Object Height/Width (Height x Width): 7.24 x 0.75 inch at widest point
Credit line: Gift of Pamela D. Kingsbury
Accession number: 2000.0155.a
Not on display
Add to portfolio

If you wish to reproduce this image, please submit an image request

Label texts

Exhibition Label: "Circuits of Exchange: The Global Taste for Blue-and-White Ceramics," Mar-2009, Kris Ercums When Chinese porcelain became widely popular in Europe in the mid-1600s, Europeans did not fully understand how porcelain was produced (it requires a high-fired additive known as kaolin). Theories proposed that the coveted material was made by burying a variety of materials including lobster shells and plaster in the ground for eighty years. However, continuous experiments at a manufactory in Saint-Cloud, a small town west of Paris, produced a distinctive paste. As the first major porcelain factory in France, Saint-Cloud began production of soft-paste porcelain in the early 1690s. New influences gradually increased availability, and eventual unable to compete Saint-Cloud closed in 1766.