Fruit Basket

c. 1770-1772

American China Manufactory (American, active 1770-1772)
Philadelphia, PA

This delicate fruit basket is a rare example of early American porcelain, one of only 20 known surviving works by Gousse Bonnin and George Anthony Morris’s American China Manufactory. Porcelain, a kind of ceramic, originated in China, where its formula was a heavily guarded secret; it eventually emerged as a prized material in global luxury goods because of its luminosity and strength. American manufacturers were slow to develop porcelain wares because of the hazards of the materials and equipment, a lack of skilled craftspeople, and foreign price competition. Even though the American China Manufactory was short-lived, this basket represents the early advancements of this industry in the American colonies.

Status: On View, Gallery 168
Department: Arts of the Americas

Artist: American China Manufactory (Producer)
Title: Fruit Basket
Places: Philadelphia (Object made in), United States (Object made in)
Date: c. 1770-1772
Medium: Soft-paste porcelain, underglaze blue decoration
Inscriptions: Marked on bottom, in underglaze blue: Z or S (inverted)
Dimensions: 5.1 × 14.7 × 14.7 cm (2 × 5 3/4 × 5 3/4 in.)
Credit Line: Vance American Art Fund; Americana, Jane and Morris Weeden, and Roger and J. Peter McCormick endowment funds
Reference Number: 2022.588
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Probably with Colonel Hezekiah Ketchum (1756–1836), Wilton, CT, Waterford, NY and New York, NY, by 1836; probably by descent to his daughter, Ann Eliza Carter (born Ann Eliza Ketchum) (c. 1796–1867), New York, by 1836; probably by descent to her son, Galen Augustus Carter (1832–1893), New York and Stamford, CT, by 1867; by descent within the family; sold through Christie’s, New York, to the Art Institute of Chicago, 2022.

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