Moulded dish with figures emblematic of 'Fecundity'

London, Southwark oval dish, after a French original by Nernard Palissy. It is decorated in high relief with a scene known as 'La Fecondite' showing a naked woman and four children. The ground is picked out in blue with brickwork, and the rim has masks in relief and depressions with stylised leaves and fruit. It is painted in a bold palette of ochre, blue, green and yellow.

English “fecundity dishes” modelled much like this one bear dates from 1633 to 1697, and were displayed similarly to prints or paintings. The central scene symbolized the owners’ hopes for the successful bearing and raising of children. Such classical motifs form a peculiarly English contrast with the large leaf elements, in the wells, drawn from the Eight Precious Things motif found on some Chinese export porcelain. Traditionally, fecundity dishes were thought to have been inspired by Bernard Palissy’s wares made in Saintonge, France, during the late mid-16th century, but no closely similar prototype has yet been identified