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Plate

ca. 1756-58

The botanical painting on this plate is copied from an engraving in Philip Miller’s Figures of the Most Beautiful, Useful, and Uncommon Plants, published between 1755 and 1760. Illustrations from volume one of this important work were used as source material for botanicals on Chelsea porcelain. Miller included Dwarf Southernwood in his book not for its beauty but for its efficacy as a medicine. In its dictionary listing, he recorded: “Southernwood is bitter and aromatic, with a very strong smell. It is not much in use, but promises considerable effects, outwardly in discussing contusions and tumours, inwardly for destroying worms, and in disorders peculiar to the female sex. . . . The branches dye wool a deep yellow."

Soft paste porcelain

8 in. (20.3 cm), diameter

Gift of Martha and Henry Isaacson

76.219

Provenance: Collection of Mr and Mrs Henry and Martha Isaacson, unknown purchase date until 1976; gift from Mr and Mrs Henry and Martha Isaacson to Seattle Art Museum, Washington, 1976

Now on view at the Seattle Art Museum

Media

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SAM's Porcelain Room

Resources

Exhibition HistorySeattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, "Porcelain Stories: From China to Europe", February 17, 2000-May 7, 2000 (2/17/2000 - 5/7/2000)

Published ReferencesEmerson, Julie, Jennifer Chen, & Mimi Gardner Gates, "Porcelain Stories, From China to Europe", Seattle Art Museum, 2000, pg. 236

"Eighteenth Century English Porcelain: A Special Exhibition," Seattle, WA: Seattle Art Museum, April-May 1956, no. 78.

Seattle Art Museum respectfully acknowledges that we are on Indigenous land, the traditional territories of the Coast Salish people. We honor our ongoing connection to these communities past, present, and future.

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