Title: Dessert Plate
Year: 1838-42
Material: Hard Paste Porcelain
Creator: Rihouet Factory, Paris
Collection: Seen at Eastern State Penitentiary: Image from Philadelphia Museum of Art

This object is a porcelain dessert plate that depicts a landscape scene of Eastern State Penitentiary surrounded by an elegant floral border.

This object is important to people that enjoy collecting china or souvenir plates. More importantly this object is important to those interested in memorabilia.

This dessert plate is displayed as an image on a panel about Eastern State Penitentiary as an early tourist destination and influential prison. The panel is located to the left of a map of the world showing the international influence of ESP. The goal of this panel was to show visitors (from the perspective of ESP) how popular ESP was as a tourist site while it was still a functioning prison. People came from all over the world to see the prison’s state of the art plumbing. The panel mentions that even diplomats visited to see such marvels. In the near by surroundings of the plate there is a stereoscope with an image of ESP as well as an early admission ticket to enter the prison. These surrounding objects help reinforce the concept that ESP has always been a place that people visited that cause items of popular culture to be produced.
















No one would think that a dessert plate would feature a prison. The importance of this object is that it is unique and shows how ESP was viewed by popular culture in the pre-Civil War era. It is hard to say to whom this object is important because of its rarity. If it were to be important to a particular person it might be someone who is a collector or art dealer. Rihouet porcelain factory was employed by the French royal family. Rihouet was well known for producing a series of tea sets and dessert sets that depicted famous places of the early 1800s.

As it turns out the son of founding father and proponent of solitary confinement Dr. Benjamin Rush owned a wide variety of these tea and dessert sets depicting famous places like the ESP plate. They are on display at the Smithsonian. 

Rihouet Porcelain owned by Richard Rush on display at the Smithsonian.

The label reads as follows:

"Richard Rush (1780-1859), son of Benjamin Rush, the famous Philadelphia physician, was a lawyer and statesman. He served as Secretary of State under James Monroe, United States Minister to Great Britain from 1817 to 1825, and United States Minister to France from 1847-1849. This set of porcelain, made by the firm “Rihouet” of Paris, was collected by Rush while he was minister to France. Rihouet was established in 1818 and was awarded the title of faience maker to the King in 1824. The company specialized mainly in table services and tea or coffee sets. The pieces in this set are decorated with scenes and monuments from all over the world as well as fruits, flowers, and putti, all popular motifs from the first half of the nineteenth century."

 *Note: This information came from from a flickr account. The plates are in the collection at the Smithsonian but I cannot locate a reference to this exact text.

I found an interesting article about ESP and some of the contemporary issues with prisons that mentioned the dessert plate. 

Overall, I think this object would be better experienced if it wasn’t just an image. I also think that adding some more contributing artifacts would be helpful and create more interest. Perhaps something you would touch or manipulate.