Union Porcelain Works was one of the most important and inventive American porcelain manufacturers in the second-half of the nineteenth century. In addition to their imaginative works designed by the German-born artistic director, Karl H. L. Müller, the firm’s mainstay was the production of heavy porcelain hotel dinnerware. This extensive service was made by Thomas Carll Smith, head of the Union Porcelain Works, as a gift to his daughter, Pastora Forest Smith Chace. The neoclassical decoration of the gilt bellflower and basket motif is complimented by turquoise enamel. Unlike the firm’s more eccentric and lavish designs created for their display at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition in 1876, the pottery favored a more restrained classical style for their dinner services. This service descended in the Chace family.
Credit: Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Franklin Chace, 1969