Design for a Plate

This hand-painted design showcases purple pansies arranged in a radiating pattern across a scalloped porcelain form. The working drawing combines pencil notation with watercolor flourishes, documenting the Noritake company's decorative process during Japan's rapid modernization of ceramics manufacturing. Marginal numbers and product codes indicate factory inventory systems. Noritake, established in Nagoya in 1876, pioneered industrial production of hand-decorated dinnerware for export, blending Western tableware conventions with Japanese aesthetic traditions. Such designs circulated between the company's Nagoya workshops and its New York sales office, bridging Pacific markets in the era of expanding international trade.