Design for a Sugar Bowl

This hand-colored design drawing documents a porcelain sugar bowl produced by Noritake, the Japanese ceramics manufacturer with operations in New York. The vessel features naturalistic pink and magenta flowers with green stems rendered across its body, flanked by ornamental handles with scrollwork terminals. The lid incorporates a matching floral band and looped handle. Archival notations indicate multiple pattern variations and catalog references. The work exemplifies the aesthetic preferences of the Gilded Age, when Japanese-inspired decoration and Western ceramic forms merged in middle-class American households. Noritake's transatlantic production model helped establish Japan as a major supplier of decorated tableware to the American market.