Bronze Age Gold from Wales

Plate, soft-paste porcelain, creamy paste with a whitish translucency, standing on a shallow tapering foot rim, dish-shaped with pronounced cavetto and waved, fluted rim; the centre painted in polychrome enamels with a circular titled scene, 'Hafod', featuring the view north-west across the River Ystwyth to the meadow below the Flower Garden with the path of the Ladies' Walk visible, woods on the left, hills in the distance, framed by an underglaze blue line edged with gold and gilded sprays, the rim with gilded pendant leaves below an underglaze blue border and gilded dentil edge.

The picturesque landscape created by Thomas Johnes (1748-1816) at Hafod was one of the most celebrated of its day. To commemorate its creation, Johnes ordered a 37-piece dessert service from Derby ‘Enamd with Select Views in the Center from his Estate in Wales & fine blue & Gold Border’. It is the earliest and most comprehensive record of Hafod's original appearance. The service was ordered in 1787 and took up to nine months to complete. At £63, it was the most expensive recorded dessert service made at Derby in the late eighteenth century. This plate is probably a slightly later replacement piece, made before 1800.