A rectangular porcelain tray painted in the centre with a crowned dated ribbon within a wreath. The border is encrusted with modelled coloured flowers (passion flowers, convolvulus, hips etc) and fruit. The bottom is painted with butterflies and floral sprays.

This encrusted tray, which has at its centre Queen Victoria’s coronet when Princess Victoria of Kent, surrounded by a wreath of pansies and a pink ribbon which bears the gilded letters MAY 24 1833, was the pen tray presented to a 14-year old Victoria on her birthday by her mother, Victoria, Duchess of Kent. The pansies at the centre symbolise ‘loving thoughts’.

The tray also features the false Meissen blue underglaze crossed swords mark, which was known to have been applied to Minton encrusted wares at this period, either in homage or deceit. The heavy, three-dimensional flowers are similar to those produced by Coalport, and the factories’ productions are often confused. During the 1830s, Minton’s encrusted ware was so desirable that 14 flowerers, who made the three-dimensional heads, with a team of over 19 boys, feature in the Minton wages book. Identical examples of encrusted pieces are rare, which can make identification between the various English factories at this time difficult. The fashion was intense, but short-lived: no encrusted ware was exhibited at the Great Exhibition in 1851.

Text adapted from Painting Paradise: The Art of the Garden, London, 2015.