Warming dish
Dinner service
Maker & role
Unknown
Production date
circa 1820
Object detail
Production place
Collection
Measurements
H: 27.5 x W: 25.4cm (H: 275 x W: 254mm)
Production notes
Chinese export porcelain. Sold via Guangzhou (formerly Canton).
Signature & marks
Crest of Lieutenant Hanbury Clements
Credit line
Purchase, 2001
Elizabeth Bay House Collection, Museums of History New South Wales
Elizabeth Bay House Collection, Museums of History New South Wales
Description
Chinese export porcelain warming dish with Canton enamel overglaze polychrome border and crest of Lieutenant Hanbury Clements. The border (in terracotta, dark blue, light green and gilt) features scrolls separating vignette panels – alternating scenes of flowering tree within rocky landscape; and pair of birds, one of which is nesting (perhaps an appropriate scene to commemorate a marriage). The piece has a gilt rim and floral border within the cavetto. The central crest is a rampant half griffin with claws and wings upraised on a striped bar. The warming dish has a pair of spouts and central reservoir that contained hot water to heat (or retain the heat of) food on the plate surface. The warming dish is part of an important Chinese export dinner service (EB2007/10:1-7) provenanced to Hanbury Clements, a lieutenant in the Royal Navy and later a private captain and trader in the South Pacific before settling in Liverpool, New South Wales in 1829. It is thought that he acquired his Cantonese dinner service after his marriage in 1817. The dinner service is indicative of important trade relationships between Sydney, Canton and other parts of India, south-east Asia and the South Pacific in the early colonial period. A pair of collector’s chests presented as chiffoniers also provenanced to Hanbury Clements, and reflective of similar themes, is in the Powerhouse Museum.
Accession number
EB2007/15
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