Antique Haviland Limoges Dinner hotsell Plate 9.5" Hand Painted Porcelain Dresden Flowers Victorian Shabby Cottage Chic

Antique Haviland Limoges Dinner Plate 9.5" Hand Painted Porcelain Dresden Flowers Victorian Shabby Cottage Chic.

Beautiful antique Victorian era Limoges handpainted porcelain dinner plate. The plate features various Dresden style flowers on a white background among gilt enameled accents. I have three plates available, each plate measures 9.5" diameter.

EACH PLATE IS BEING SOLD SEPARATELY, make your choice of how many you want by using the drop box menu. Price is per plate.

All plates bear a "H&CO L France" mark under glaze back stamp for Haviland & Co.

Condition: Very good pre-owned condition, very little wear. They are unsigned as to painter, but were purchased at the same estate as the dessert plates painted by artist "SM Kelsey", that I have up for sale in a separate listing.

All photos taken in natural sunlight.

A table set with an assorted mix of antique dinnerware is very appealing to the eye. Mismatching china sets are an absolute must for a vintage themed wedding, combining a large variety of colors, patterns and styles to create a truly unique experience. The different patterns will add a dainty touch to the reception tables.

This is part of a huge collection of antique Nippon and European (including Limoges) porcelain that I recently acquired from a longtime elderly collector who needed to sell off her collection as she was moving into hotsell an assisted living facility. All pieces are authentic and antique. I will be listing more of these pieces over the next few weeks, so please check back to see what is new to my shop.

Haviland & Co. is a manufacturer of Limoges porcelain in France, begun in the 1840s by the American Haviland family, importers of porcelain to the US, which has always been the main market. Its finest period is generally accepted to be the late 19th century, when it tracked wider artistic styles in innovative designs in porcelain, as well as stoneware and sometimes other ceramics.

American David Haviland was a New York-based importer/exporter who recognized the quality of French porcelains and wished to import them for an American clientele. Charles Haviland explained his father's history as such:

"In 1839, my father was an importer of English Porcelain and earthenware in New York, when he happened to see a French porcelain tea service that had, I know not how, found its way across the Atlantic. My father found the material of this service quite superior to that of the English porcelain and earthenware that had been the object of his trade and thought it would be a good thing to be the first in America to introduce tableware very superior to that in use in his country at that time…he went to France with his samples, asking anyone he thought might know, in what locality they had been made. Finally, in Paris, he was told it had to be Limoges porcelain."

While others were selling French wares, and this story is a little romantic, David Haviland fully recognized the quality of French wares and decide to change his import business completely by only bringing in French porcelains. He committed by moving to France in 1842 and by sending wares directly to his brothers who remained in New York. He quickly realized that to get the wares that he wanted that were palatable to an American consumer he would need to open his own factory and to control the decorating process himself. Their new company was called Haviland Brothers & Company. Before David Haviland, pieces were crafted in Limoges and then sent to Paris for decoration, often these decorators would add their own marks to the pieces. Haviland found this to be inefficient and made it difficult to control the quality of the product being produced. He also found that Parisian decoraters were not willing to modify their designs to suit an American taste. Americans, in general, preferred the English style of decoration. Therefore, Haviland opened his own school for decorators where he could have them trained in a style that combined English and French design that would appeal to an American market. This cut out the need to send wares to Paris and allowed Haviland to precisely estimate how much it would cost to create his wares.

Early on in operations, Haviland acquired white blanks from other porcelain manufactories in Limoges and decorated the wares in-house. Some of these blanks were already decorated in high-fire colors, which required a kiln that could reach temperatures high enough to burn porcelain. The factory did have a muffle kiln which got sufficiently hot enough to set low-fire colors and to add gilding, which burns at the lowest temperature. The factory did not have a high-fire kiln until 1853 when they applied for permission to build two of them. Haviland did not acquire the ability to significantly produce porcelains completely in-house until 1865.

Due to Haviland Brothers & Company's market success, they significantly altered the porcelain market in France. Their streamlined business model and market dominance meant that other firms had to copy their innovations or be squeezed out. By 1853 they were the largest importer of French porcelain into the United States. Limoges seemed to be particularly popular in North America in four market regions: in French Canada, New York, Mississippi Valley, and in the southeastern United States as a whole. Its popularity in the Antebellum south is shown in the fact that it had subsidiaries in Augusta, Charleston, and Mobile. This also means that during the Civil War and immediately afterwards, Haviland & Co. lost a large share of its buyers who were preoccupied with war.

The effects of the Civil War were so pronounced that Haviland Brothers & Co. had to close its doors. David Haviland saw this as an opportunity to go into business for himself and rebranded his new company Haviland and Company. He also brought his two sons, Charles Edward and Theodore into the company. Charles Edward quickly took over the day to day operations from his father and Theodore moved to the United States to handle the side of the business that had formerly belonged to their uncles – the exporting and promoting of Haviland China.

The company continued to be managed by the two brothers with Charles Edward largely in control and managing the day to day operations and Theodore in America until 1879 when Theodore moved back to France. Both brothers in one location proved to be too much for either and they decided to dissolve their partnership in 1891. Charles Edward continued with the business and Theodore opened his own business, Theodore Haviland, Limoges, in 1893. The two companies competed bitterly until Charles Edward's death in 1921, the company folded in 1931. In 1941 William Haviland, Theodore's son, bought the rights to the Haviland & Company name and began production of wares after World War II.

The Haviland company has since been overseen by grandson William Haviland, and great-grandson Theodore Haviland II.