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King’s College Dinner Service (dinner plate)
Factory:
Josiah Wedgwood & Sons
Designer:
Guyatt, Richard Talbot
Cream-coloured earthenware, transffer-printed in underglaze in black. In the middle, within a gilt circle, is a five-layer Tudor rose made up of wavy ribbons and true lovers' knots, over the centre of which are the initials 'HR' with below to left 'VII', to right 'VIII' and below them, 'VI'. On the rim are ten ‘h’s, each formed by a dragon with its neck through a cleft stake, each stake decorated with seven gilt flicks. The underside is undecorated, fully glazed and has a narrow raised foot-rim.
History note: Commissioned by King's College, Cambridge
Given by Dr A.N.L. Munby, King's College
Diameter: 27.3 cm
Height: 2.5 cm
Method of acquisition: Given (1969-03-13) by Munby, A. N. L.
20th Century, Mid#
Production date:
AD 1955
King’s originally only ordered the 10” dinner plate, but added the 9” pudding plate in 1956 and the soup plate a couple of years later. The Fitzwilliam holds an example of each, as well as an unglazed sample of the soup plate and examples from Guyatt’s ‘Oranges and Lemons’ lemonade set and of commemorative mugs he designed for Wedgwood, as well as Wedgwood Queen’s ware designed by Eric Ravilious.
Richard Gerald Talbot Guyatt CBE (1914-2007) began his career as a freelance graphic designer with posters for Shell-Mex and BP and book illustrations. At the Royal College of Art, where he was a professor from 1948 and later rector, he lead the introduction of education in graphic design and influenced subsequent expansion into typography, illustration, printmaking, photography, film and television design. From 1952-55 and 1967-70 Guyatt was consultant designer to Wedgwood. The company had revived the use of engraved designs in the mid 1930s – a mode of decoration which allowed the artist’s own work and ‘hand-writing’ to be reproduced in a factory setting, and well suited to Guyatt’s style. His design for this dinner service for the High Table of King's College, Cambridge, was recorded on 18 March 1954. The body is listed as ‘CC’ (cream coloured earthenware, or ‘Queen’s ware’), and pattern book entry, no. G5558, notes it was first ‘printed in sepia, gilt, with a narrow band at edge line below verge in gold which was sanded’, though later versions are printed in black. Since 1971, when the College ordered a new 2,500 piece service, it has been made in metallized bone china with over-glaze printing, by Wedgwood's Hotel Division. The design is based on various motifs in the tracery lights of the King’s College Chapel windows. The central Tudor Rose encloses the ciphers of Henry VI, who founded the College in 1441, Henry VII and Henry VIII. The motif on the rim, an h formed by a dragon with its head in a cleft stake, was taken from stained glass in the College Chapel. The strong contrast between the bold design and the pale cream ground was characteristic of many of the 'Contemporary' style designs on tableware produced in the 1950s following the lifting of wartime restrictions on decorated tablewares.
Decoration composed of ceramic printing colour ( black) gold
clear, leadless
Clear glaze
Cream-coloured earthenware
Moulding
: Earthenware, printed in black, glazed and gilded.
Glazing (coating)
Inscription present: Circular backstamp
Accession number: C.2D-1969
Primary reference Number: 11771
Stable URI
Owner or interested party:
The Fitzwilliam Museum
Associated department:
Applied Arts
This record can be cited in the Harvard Bibliographic style using the text below:
The Fitzwilliam Museum (2024) "King’s College Dinner Service (dinner plate)" Web page available at: https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/id/object/11771 Accessed: 2024-11-05 14:52:27
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{{cite web|url=https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/id/object/11771
|title=King’s College Dinner Service (dinner plate)
|author=The Fitzwilliam Museum|accessdate=2024-11-05 14:52:27|publisher=The
University of Cambridge}}
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<figcaption class="figure-caption text-info">King’s College Dinner Service (dinner plate)</figcaption>
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