Sometimes an object grabs your attention when you’re doing a routine task such as auditing a collection. Maybe it’s a collection that hasn’t been looked at in too much detail as of late. And maybe within that you find a well-researched object that needs to be shouted about such as this one! A few years ago I was fortunate to work directly on the Allen Gallery redevelopment in Alton, Hampshire as part of a huge project to audit, evaluate and redisplay the ceramics collection.

One of the star objects of this collection, that I am now lucky to know quite well, is the Bonnin & Morris pickle dish. A small, blue and white, star-shaped porcelain dish manufactured in Philadelphia in the early 1770s that would fit quite nicely in the palm of your hand. This simple statement of fact is exactly what is remarkable about the object though. It was manufactured and survived an incredibly tumultuous time in American history, and eventually made its way into a Hampshire collection when it was acquired by the Curtis Museum in Alton in 1943.

When it was donated it was not at all known that it was manufactured in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was instead thought to be a piece made by the factory of Seth Pennington who worked in Liverpool around this same period. The makers mark certainly seemed to suggest this, and this was the identity that the object had assumed in 1943 and the one that it continued to assume all the way through until 2010.

In 2010 though when it was on display an eagle-eyed and member of the English Ceramics Circle noted the dish and took issue with its attribution. The piece got analysed chemically and indeed was determined to be this incredibly rare survivor of colonial American porcelain. So few pieces survive due to the varying quality of the product so for Alton to have had one sat on display for all those years is quiet remarkable. No other known, or at least published, examples survive in UK museums. Only a very small number exist across the pond. And none quite resemble this little pickle dish, meaning it truly is one of a kind.

It has been off display for a number of years now but as part of the redisplay in Alton, opening early next year, the pickle dish will once again be able to be seen in all of its glory!

You can read all of the glorious scientific detail from Nicholas Panes here.