SET OF ELEVEN BLUE-PRINTED BOTANICAL PEARLWARE DINNER PLATES
WITH MATCHING MEAT PLATTER
Impressed mark: WEDGWOOD/PEARL/ 5 (printed underglaze in blue)
Etruria, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, c. 1810-1815
Two from a Set of Eleven Dinner Plates, c. 1810-1815 
Matching Wedgwood Meat Platter
Each plate with a delicate gold border and a blue on white stylized floral pattern representing tree peonies.
Diameter: 10,” each. Platter: 18½” x 13¾”
Condition: Excellent.
Wedgwood’s botanical patterns can be dated to 1810-1815 when Josiah’s oldest son, John, became involved with the firm. John Wedgwood was a founding member of the Royal Horticultural Society and it is believed that his interest resulted in a number of botanical patterns produced by the firm at this time. A set of eleven dinner plates with matching platter in this botanical pattern is both vanishingly rare and ravishingly beautiful. In homage, Wedgwood makes a modified pattern available today that is based on this original design, which the firm calls “Hibiscus.”
“Pearlware,” thought to have been developed about 1779 by Wedgwood, was a Wedgwood brand name for a “China Glaze” that English potters developed earlier to create a purer white background for blue-printed dinner ware.[1] The white earthenware body contained a greater percentage of flint and white clay to which a small amount of cobalt was added to enhance the whitening effect..[2]
2 
3 
4 
Impressed mark: WEDGWOOD / PEARL
on a set of eleven dinner plates and matching platter
More fine English porcelain is available on this site, here. Additional information about blue-printed pearlware can be found on the site of the Wedgwood Museum.
E-AAA-213158
[1] Miller, George L. (1987) “Origins of Josiah Wedgwood’s “Pearlware”,” Northeast Historical Archaeology: Vol. 16 16, Article 6. https://doi.org/10.22191/neha/vol16/iss1/6 Available at: http://orb.binghamton.edu/neha/vol16/iss1/6
[2] Wolf Mankowitz, Wedgwood (London: B.T. Batsford Ltd., 1953), 44.