Plate from the ‘Frog Service’

Oval, cream coloured earthenware plate from the 'Frog Service', painted with a view of the lake at West Wycombe, Buckinghamshire.

Contributor: Elizabeth McKellar

Location: London, Victoria and Albert Museum, British Galleries, Room 118; The Wolfson Gallery, case 3

Description: This dish, for serving meat or vegetables, held in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, forms part of the ‘Frog Service’, a huge 50-person dinner and dessert service. It was commissioned by Catherine the Great from Josiah Wedgwood in 1773 and reflects Catherine’s passion for English landscape aesthetics and gardening. It exemplifies one way that such Anglophone tastes travelled across Europe at this time.

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