Shreve & Co. Sterling-Rimmed Coalport "French-Noble" Porcelain Charger, San Francisco

The sterling rim fits the porcelain so precisely — its engraved foliate band stepping down exactly to the ceramic border — that you understand immediately this was not an afterthought. Someone commissioned this. A Coalport bone china charger, decorated in the "French-Noble" pattern, fitted with a custom sterling silver mount by Shreve & Co. of San Francisco: the kind of object the city's Nob Hill households ordered when they wanted their table to announce something.

The porcelain decoration is an Adam-revival composition of considered restraint and color confidence: a footed pink urn issuing yellow blossoms and trailing green vines at center, enclosed within a fine dotted-arc border. Four floral sprigs animate the open well, and a bold frieze of pink scrollwork on black grounds, punctuated by rosette medallions and beaded scallop banding, carries the eye to the silver rim. The Shreve mount is engraved with a continuous floral and foliate band, now wearing a soft, honest patina. The underside of the rim is stamped SHREVE & CO. SAN FRANCISCO STERLING 7754; the porcelain body carries its own Coalport England "French-Noble" 7177 mark.

History

Shreve & Co. was established in San Francisco in 1852, making it one of the oldest continuously operating jewelers and silversmiths on the West Coast. Through the Gilded Age and into the early twentieth century, Shreve outfitted the households of California's merchant and railroad elite — their sterling hollowware, flatware, and silver-mounted objects are documented in American silver reference literature and appear in institutional and private collections across the country. The practice of commissioning custom sterling mounts for fine English porcelain was a high-end retail speciality: the silversmith sourced blanks from English factories, fitted them with precisely measured mounts, and sold the finished objects to clients who wanted something genuinely bespoke. Coalport — the Shropshire manufactory operating since approximately 1795 and acquired by the Wedgwood Group in 1967 — was a natural source for such blanks, known for its fine bone china body and richly layered enamel decoration. The "French-Noble" pattern name, with its continental aristocratic reference, is consistent with Coalport's early twentieth-century pattern naming conventions, and pattern number 7177 falls within the factory's numbering sequence from roughly the 1900s–1920s.

CONDITION

Very Good. The sterling rim shows light surface scratches and tarnish consistent with age — we'll leave the polishing to you. The porcelain field is bright with no chips, cracks, or notable losses to the enamel decoration.

DIMENSIONS / SPECIFICATIONS

• Diameter: 11 1/2"
• Height: 1"
• Silver Maker: Shreve & Co., San Francisco
• Silver Mark: SHREVE & CO. SAN FRANCISCO STERLING 7754
• Porcelain Maker: Coalport, England
• Porcelain Pattern: French-Noble
• Porcelain Pattern Number: 7177
• Campbell's Soup Can (4" H) Shown for Scale — Not Included