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Dish: The Temptation or Fall
Pottery:
Unidentified Bristol pottery
(Possibly)
Pottery:
Brislington Pottery
(Possibly)
Tin-glazed earthenware painted in blue, green, yellow, and red, with The Temptation
Buff earthenware, tin-glazed overall, and painted on the front in blue, green, yellow, and red, and sponged in green. Circular with deep curved sides amd everted rim, standing on a footring. Decorated on the front with Adam and Eve wearing leaf aprons standing on either side of the Tree of Knowledge, and flanked by sponged green bushes surrounded by a blue circle and blue dash border.
History note: Unknown before Dr J.W.L. Glaisher, Trinity College, Cambridge
Dr J.W.L. Glaisher Bequest
Diameter: 34 cm
Diameter: 13 3/8 in
Height: 7.4 cm
Height: 2 7/8 in
Method of acquisition: Bequeathed (1928-12-07) by Glaisher, J. W. L., Dr
18th Century, second quarter
George II
Circa
1725
CE
-
1735
CE
This dish was probably made at either Brislington or Bristol. It is one of many decorated with blue dashes round the edge, known to collectors as 'Blue Dash Chargers'. The Temptation of Adam and Eve was one of the most popular subjects for the decoration of these dishes which were made from the 1630s. On this example dating probably from the 1720s or early 1730s, the couple are depicted wearing short skirts made of leaves, which suggests that they had already eaten the forbidden fruit and become aware of their nakedness. Eve, however, is shown reaching up into the Tree to take a fruit, perhaps an indication of the difficulty of refraining from enjoyable sins, or simply because the painter put skirts on the figures for modesty's sake, and forgot that this did not strictly follow order of events in the bible story..
Decoration composed of high-temperature colours ( blue, green, yellow and red)
buff
Earthenware
white
Tin-glaze
Tin-glazing : Tin-glazed earthenware painted in blue, green, yellow, and red, and sponged in green, high temperature colours; three stilt marks on the front; many pinholes in the glaze on the reverse and a few brown marks near the rim
Accession number: C.1618-1928
Primary reference Number: 72315
Old object number: R 998
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 (2025) "Dish: The Temptation or Fall" Web page available at: https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/id/object/72315 Accessed: 2025-06-23 21:25:17
To cite this record on Wikipedia you can use this code snippet:
{{cite web|url=https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/id/object/72315
|title=Dish: The Temptation or Fall
|author=The Fitzwilliam Museum|accessdate=2025-06-23 21:25:17|publisher=The
University of Cambridge}}
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https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/api/v1/objects/object-72315
To use this as a simple code embed, copy this string:
<div class="text-center">
<figure class="figure">
<img src="https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/imagestore/aa/aa27/C_1618_1928.jpg"
alt="Dish: The Temptation or Fall"
class="img-fluid" />
<figcaption class="figure-caption text-info">Dish: The Temptation or Fall</figcaption>
</figure>
</div>
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