Platter

For many Americans, ceramic tableware imported from England’s Staffordshire manufacturers offered the opportunity to enjoy classical ornament at breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Excavations of ancient Herculaneum and Pompei became widely known through publications and prints. Many designs of Roman architecture, interior design, and objects found their way into English manufactured goods. This small platter bears a celebrated ancient object—the monumental Roman marble known as the Warwick Vase. Following the marble’s archaeological recovery in the 1770s in Tivoli by Sir William Hamilton, it vied with the Portland Vase as the most admired ancient object.