Porcelain and Revolutionary Principles: Franklin and the French

Abstract

In 1790, the year that Benjamin Franklin died, Gouverneur Morris was buying porcelain in Paris for shipping back to America. Morris, who had put the United States Constitution into its final literary form and would soon succeed Thomas Jefferson as American minister to France, was engaged on a commission for George Washington. As he wrote to the President: ‘I was violently tempted to send out two dozen cups and saucers with the needful accompaniments for Mrs Washington ... 100 to 150 guineas will procure a very handsome set of tea china and a very large and neat table set.’ He was impressed by the quality of the porcelain produced by the ‘Manufacture of Angoulême’, and recorded in his diary: ‘I think I shall purchase for General Washington here.’ He did, and a butter dish, two soup plates and nine dinner plates (all with the Angoulême mark) survive to this day.¹