Thomas Wolfe Factory Z Lion Pattern English Teacup and Saucer
Located in Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire
A scarce antique English Staffordshire bone china teacup and saucer hand decorated with a red lion by Thomas Wolfe (Factory Z) and dating from around 1810. The cup is of wide round s...
Porcelain
Thomas Wolfe Factory Z Lion Pattern English Teacup and Saucer
Located in Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire
A scarce antique English Staffordshire bone china teacup and saucer hand decorated with a red lion by Thomas Wolfe (Factory Z) and dating from around 1810. The cup is of wide round s...
Porcelain
Thomas Wolfe Factory Z Coffee Can, Bat Printed Monochrome Fruits, ca 1810
By Staffordshire
Located in London, GB
This is a very charming orphaned coffee can made by Thomas Wolfe at Factory Z in about 1810, which was the Regency era.
Porcelain
Sold
H 2.4 in Dm 2.5 in
Thomas Wolfe Factory Z Orphaned Coffee Can, White and Gilt, Georgian, circa 1800
Located in London, GB
This is a very charming orphaned coffee can made by Thomas Wolfe at Factory Z in circa 1800, which was the Georgian era.
Porcelain
Extensive English Porcelain Dessert Service, circa 1825
Located in New York, NY
Pair of covered fruit coolers, pair of covered sauce tureens, pair of open work baskets, 1 compote, 4 kidney-shaped dishes, pair of square dishes, pair of oval dishes, 16 plates.
Porcelain
Fine English Porcelain Dessert Service, Minton, circa 1830
Located in New York, NY
Comprising 24 plates, pair of covered sauce tureens and stands, pair of shell dishes and a pair of rectangular dishes. The bright blue ground interspersed with gilt-edged reticulatio...
Porcelain
$900 / set
H 1 in Dm 9.75 in
Set 15 English Antique Dinner Plates Soup Dishes & One Platter Circa 1860
By Copeland Spode
Located in Katonah, NY
This set of nine dinner plates, six matching soup dishes, and a platter painted in Spode's "Peacock" pattern was made by Copeland Spode circa 1860. The "Peacock" pattern was first ma...
Ironstone
Antique French Samson Porcelain Plates Set 14 Hand Painted Floral
By Edmé Samson
Located in Katonah, NY
This set of 14 antique French porcelain dishes, attributed to Samson, is built around a strong cobalt blue and gilt border that gives the service immediate presence on the table. Wi...
Porcelain
Fabergé Silver Service
By Fabergé
Located in New Orleans, LA
This extraordinary 128-piece service by Fabergé is a rare treasure in more ways than one. Enclosed in its original oak chest, the exquisite service remains complete and in pristine c...
Silver
English Scenic Porcelain Dessert Service, Mid-19th Century
Located in Ottawa, Ontario
English Scenic porcelain Dessert service, mid-19th century, polychrome hand-painted with three various romantic landscape scenes in a round cartouches on a pink border, decorated wit...
Porcelain
Large English Porcelain Dinner Service, Minton, circa 1845
Located in New York, NY
With a soft turquoise ground, painted with a fine spray of flowers, with gilt scroll and dash borders. Comprising pair of covered tureens and stands, pair of vegetable tureens, well ...
Porcelain
$24,000 / set
H 2 in W 14.8 in D 16.5 in
Mid 19th Century Hand-Painted British Porcelain Dinnerware, 88 Pieces
Located in Tarry Town, NY
Mid 19th Century British porcelain dinnerware service with hand painted gilt foliate borders with bouquets of wild flowers against a white background design details. Each piece is in...
Gold
$12,000 / set
H 1 in Dm 9.75 in
Spode New Stone China Dinner Service Eighty Four Pieces, Pattern #3504
By Spode
Located in Downingtown, PA
Spode New Stone China Dinner Service- Eighty Four Pieces, Pattern #3504, Circa 1820 The service is decorated in an Imari pattern in iron red light and dark blue and gold of a stand ...
Ironstone, Ceramic
Oak and Walnut Tester Bed
Located in New Orleans, LA
This lavish American oak and walnut tester bed exhibits superior craftsmanship and detail. The design is embellished by elaborate carving throughout in a neoclassical motif the inclu...
Silk, Mahogany, Oak, Walnut
Regency Large Coalport Porcelain Dessert Service-Thirty Nine Pieces
By Coalport Porcelain
Located in Downingtown, PA
Regency Rarity: Spode Porcelain Dessert Service, Pattern 2314 This extensive and highly theatrical Spode Porcelain Dessert Service, dating to the peak of the Regency era around Circ...
Porcelain
18th Century Chinese Canton Enamel Plate
Located in New Orleans, LA
This enchanting Chinese plate, known as Canton enamel, evokes the intrigue and exclusivity of the 18th- century Imperial court. Boasting a magnificent famille rose background hue, th...
Enamel
Amazing Early 19C Davenport Longport Imari China Dinner Service
By Davenport Porcelain
Located in Dallas, TX
PRESENTING an AMAZING, EXTREMELY RARE and EXTENSIVE Early 19C Davenport Longport Imari China Dinner Service from circa 1805-1820. HIGH REGENCY PERIOD/ERA. This is WITHOUT A DOUBT, ...
Porcelain
$75,000 / set
H 1.25 in Dm 8.5 in
English Chamberlain Worcester Porcelain Part Dessert Service, circa 1815
Located in New York, NY
Comprising footed compote, pair of covered sauce tureens, one gallery (partially restored), pair of lozenge-shaped dishes, pair of kidney-shaped dishes, four shell dishes, four squar...
Porcelain
Assembled Copeland and Garrett Part Dinner Service, Early 19th Century
Located in New York, NY
UPDATE: SOLD 12 dinner plates, 10 soup plates, one well-and-tree platter. Each piece transfer-printed in blue with panels of classical figures and vases, comprising: a soup tureen an...
Porcelain
Pair of 19th Century Hand-Painted Spode Sauce Tureens
By Spode
Located in Great Barrington, MA
This is a special pair of 19th C, Spode sauce tureens with matching attached underplates and handles. The raised molded relief depicting pheasants and the addition of hand painted po...
Porcelain
Today you’re likely to bring out your antique and vintage porcelain in order to dress up your dining table for a special meal.
Porcelain, a durable and nonporous kind of pottery made from clay and stone, was first made in China and spread across the world owing to the trade routes to the Far East established by Dutch and Portuguese merchants. Given its origin, English speakers called porcelain “fine china,” an expression you still might hear today. "Fine" indeed — for over a thousand years, it has been a highly sought-after material.
Meissen Porcelain, one of the first factories to create real porcelain outside Asia, popularized figurine centerpieces during the 18th century in Germany, while works by Capodimonte, a porcelain factory in Italy, are synonymous with flowers and notoriously hard to come by. Modern porcelain houses such as Maison Fragile of Limoges, France — long a hub of private porcelain manufacturing — keep the city’s long tradition alive while collaborating with venturesome contemporary artists such as illustrator Jean-Michel Tixier.
Porcelain is not totally clumsy-guest-proof, but it is surprisingly durable and easy to clean. Its low permeability and hardness have rendered porcelain wares a staple in kitchens and dining rooms as well as a common material for bathroom sinks and dental veneers. While it is tempting to store your porcelain behind closed glass cabinet doors and reserve it only for display, your porcelain dinner plates and serving platters can safely weather the “dangers” of the dining room and be used during meals.
Add different textures and colors to your table with dinner plates and pitchers of ceramic and silver or a porcelain lidded tureen, a serving dish with side handles that is often used for soups. Although porcelain and ceramic are both made in a kiln, porcelain is made with more refined clay and is stronger than ceramic because it is denser.
On 1stDibs, browse an expansive collection of antique and vintage porcelain made in a variety of styles, including Regency, Scandinavian modern and other examples produced during the mid-century era, plus Rococo, which found its inspiration in nature and saw potters crafting animal figurines and integrating organic motifs such as floral patterns in their work.