1954.116, Plate, n.d., Porcelain, overglaze enamels

Family crests and shields were the most impressive way to increase the status of an item in 18th-century America. Not only did it promise uniqueness, but quite blatantly hinted at an association with English nobility and gentry. By the time of the American Revolution, they appeared on a wide variety of high-end consumer goods, from silver tankards and fine porcelain like this, to carriages and servants' livery, to the decorative relief over doors and on ceilings.

Stephanie Grauman Wolf, "Rarer than Riches" in The Portrait in Eighteenth Century America, (Newark: University of Delaware Press), 1993, 97.

Until 1954: Collection of Helen Woolworth

From 1954: Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, gift of the Winfield Foundation [1]

[1] The name of the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, founded in 1933, was changed to the Dallas Museum of Art in 1983.

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