This series of four creamware plates was once part of a larger set that portrayed the Parable of the Prodigal Son. This Biblical passage is one of the most widely known parables in the New Testament, told by Jesus Christ and recorded in Lucas 15:11-32.
The parable tells of a father with two sons, the youngest of which demands his inheritance from his father. As soon as he receives it, he departs and squanders the money in a foreign land. He becomes a beggar, takes a job as a swineherd and suffers such hunger that he comes to regret his actions. He resolves to return to his father’s home, confess his sins to his father, and beg for a job as a day labourer. When he finally returns home, his father is so overjoyed at his son’s return that he barely lets him speak before rushing him into his home. He dresses his son in fine clothing and calls for a grand feast. When the elder son complains at this behaviour, having always served his father loyally, the father answers: “My son, you are always with me and all that is mine, is yours. But we have no choice but to celebrate and rejoice, for your brother was dead, and is alive again. He was lost, and is found.” The plates, which were made for the Dutch market, form a moralist illustration that depicts the highlights of the story.
Creamware is refined, cream-coloured earthenware with a lead glaze over a pale body, known in France as faïence fine, in the Netherlands as Engels porselein and in Italy as terraglia inglese. It was created around 1750 by Staffordshire potters, who refined the materials and techniques of salt-glaze earthenware to create a finer, paler body with a brilliant and somewhat glassy lead glaze, which proved so ideal for household earthenware that it supplanted white salt-glaze wares by approximately 1780. It remained popular until the 1840s.
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