{"product_id":"small-gilded-dish-with-moulded-scalloped-rim-and-a-smoky-worn-gold-border-stamped-22-karat-gold-over-a-blue-crest-mark","title":"Vintage Gilded Dish with Moulded Scalloped Rim and Smoky Worn Gold Border, Stamped 22 Karat Gold over a Blue Crest Mark, American, c. 1940–1965","description":"\u003ch3\u003eThe Piece\u003c\/h3\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eA small white dish with a border that has aged into something nobody designed.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eThe rim is scalloped and lightly moulded, carrying a relief pattern of shallow arches and lobes that catches the light along its edge.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eAround that rim runs a wide band that was once solid gold. What is there now is a dense smoky mottle — charcoal and warm brown shot through with surviving flecks and passages of bright gold, brightest along the extreme outer edge where the rim curls over.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eInside it, a fine gold line rings the well, and the centre is left plain.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eThe body is a clean off-white with a glossy glaze.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eUnderneath are two marks: a stamp in black reading 22 KARAT GOLD, and beneath it a faint blue underglaze device — a circular crest with shield forms set into it, too lightly printed to read.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003ch3\u003eHistory \u0026amp; Provenance\u003c\/h3\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eThe stamp is a sales claim, and it belongs to a particular moment in American kitchens.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eThrough the 1940s and 1950s, gold-decorated dinnerware was a mass-market staple in the United States, and potteries competed on how much gold and what purity. Stamping 22 KARAT GOLD on the back was the argument: not a gold-coloured lustre, not a thin wash, but high-karat gold applied and burnished. Whole services were sold on that line in department stores and by mail order.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eWhat the stamp does not do is name a maker, and the blue crest that would have is too faint to read. Enough survives to see that it is a circular device with shield forms inside it, the kind of pseudo-armorial mark potteries on both sides of the Atlantic used, but not enough to attribute. The dish is offered unattributed, but the gold stamp still dates it. Stating the karat content in English on the underside was a convention of the American china-decorating trade from about 1940 into the middle 1960s, when independent decorating shops bought plain blanks and applied liquid bright gold to them. The stamp names no country, which places that decorating in the United States, where no origin marking was required. On that evidence the dish is offered as c. 1940–1965.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eThe border is worth understanding on its own terms, because it explains what you are looking at. Gold is not laid directly onto porcelain. It goes on over a dark flux, a reddish-brown underlayer that binds it and is then covered and burnished bright. When that gold thins, the flux beneath is what shows, and it reads as smoke — charcoal, plum and brown where the gold has gone, with bright metal surviving wherever a hand or a stacked plate never reached.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eThat is what has happened here, and it is stated plainly rather than described around. The gold on this band is substantially depleted. What is left is the record of the object being used.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003ch3\u003eProduct Details\u003c\/h3\u003e\n  \u003ctable\u003e\u003ctbody\u003e\n  \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eObject\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eSmall shallow glazed dish with a moulded scalloped rim\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n  \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eDimensions\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eApproximately 5½ in across\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n  \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eForm\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eShallow well inside a scalloped rim moulded with a relief band of shallow arches and lobes\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n  \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eDecoration\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eWide gilded rim band, now largely worn to its dark underlayer and reading as a smoky charcoal-and-brown mottle with bright gold surviving along the outer edge and in scattered passages; a fine gold line around the well; plain centre\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n  \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMarks\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eStamped in black to the underside: 22 KARAT GOLD. Beneath it a faint blue underglaze circular crest with shield forms, too lightly printed to identify. No maker named; offered unattributed.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n  \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eEra\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003ec. 1940–1965, on the decorator’s stamp. Stating the karat content of the gilding in English on the underside was a convention of the American china-decorating trade through those decades, when independent decorating shops bought plain blanks and applied liquid bright gold to them. The stamp names no country, which places the decorating in the United States, where no origin marking was required. The faint blue underglaze crest beneath it is the blank maker’s mark, applied before the gilding.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n  \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCondition\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eThe gold border is substantially worn and that is the first thing to know about this dish. What was a solid gold band now reads as a dark smoky mottle, with bright gold surviving only at the extreme outer edge and in scattered patches. The thin gold line at the well is broken in places. The porcelain itself is sound: no chips, no cracks, no crazing and no repairs, the rim smooth all the way round and the moulded relief crisp. The glaze is bright and the body is clean. Sold as a decorative object, priced for the gold loss. Condition Guaranteed.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n  \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eAvailability\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eOne of a Kind — 1 Available\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n  \u003c\/tbody\u003e\u003c\/table\u003e\n  \u003ch3\u003eWhy It Belongs in Your Home\u003c\/h3\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eBuy this one for the border it has now, not the one it had.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eA solid gold band is a formal object and it asks for a formal room. What is on this dish instead is smoke — a dark, uneven, warm-toned ring that shades from charcoal to brown and breaks into gold at the edge. It is closer to a fired glaze effect than to trim, and no factory could sell it deliberately.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eThat makes it far easier to place than the piece it started as. Dark and gold against white sits with unpolished brass, old mirror, worn leather, stoneware and dark wood. It does not need the rest of a service around it to make sense.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eThe moulded rim is still doing its job. Shallow arches and lobes in relief carry shadow all the way round, and against the broken dark band the effect is more interesting than it was under solid gilding.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eAt five and a half inches it goes where a plate cannot. On a dresser it takes rings and cufflinks; on a desk, clips and stamps; on a bathroom shelf, a ring and a watch. Under a squat candle, the surviving gold throws light back.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eAnd it is honest. The gold is gone because somebody used this dish for decades, and the piece is priced for that rather than photographed around it. That is a different proposition from a perfect object, and for the right buyer a better one.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eA note on care, and it matters more here than on an intact piece. Never wash it in a dishwasher and never scour the band. What gold remains is thin and sitting on a worn surface; detergent and abrasives will take the rest.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eDo not polish it. There is no solid metal to bring up — polish removes gold rather than brightening it, and the surviving passages are the best thing about the border.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eHand wash in warm water with a soft cloth, dry at once, and keep it out of the microwave; the remaining gold is still metal.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eStack it with a felt pad or paper round between pieces if you stack it at all, and keep it out of direct sun.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Viridian Eclection","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48061148954729,"sku":"VE-0784","price":58.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/0093\/9369\/files\/IMG_4161.jpg?v=1789448011","url":"https:\/\/viridianeclection.com\/products\/small-gilded-dish-with-moulded-scalloped-rim-and-a-smoky-worn-gold-border-stamped-22-karat-gold-over-a-blue-crest-mark","provider":"Viridian Eclection","version":"1.0","type":"link"}