Dish or Sauceboat

Saint-Cloud Porcelain Manufactory

about 1745–1750

Soft-paste porcelain with underglaze blue and glaze, Soft-paste porcelain

J. Paul Getty Museum

A white porcelain dish or sauceboat is decorated with blue underglaze motifs of butterflies and scrolling foliage around the rim and interior. The dish has a leaf-like shape with a handle on the right side. A white porcelain dish or sauceboat is decorated with blue underglaze motifs of butterflies and scrolling foliage around the rim and interior. The dish has a leaf-like shape with a handle on the right side. The form and ornament of this dish or sauceboat reference elements from nature. It is molded in the shape of a subtly lobed leaf with an interior of radiating flower petals, similar in pattern to those of a dahlia, and a grooved loop handle at the stem end of the leaf form. The painted decoration in underglaze blue comprises a stylized flower and scroll pattern along the inner rim, a large, stylized butterfly in the well of the d