In 2015 the Rundāle Palace Museum (RPM) acquired a chestnut basket from the Anne Besnard Antiquaire antiques shop in Saint-Ouen, France.
Baskets of various shapes and sizes have been used since ancient times, typically made of straw, wicker, reed, wood shavings or other natural materials. They are even depicted on the walls of Ancient Egypt burial vaults and temples. 18th and 19th century European porcelain and faience manufactories produced a range of baskets for both decorative and practical purposes, such as storing bread, fruits, berries, flowers, sweetmeats and sweet chestnuts. Some were designed to imitate straw braiding and wickerwork.
The chestnut basket obtained by the RPM was produced in Great Britain’s Worcester porcelain manufactory, known today as Royal Worcester. Founded in 1751 by the physician John Wall and apothecary William Davis, the manufactory was purchased in 1783 by Thomas Flight. It gained renown for its vases decorated with underglaze cobalt blue paintings. This particular chestnut basket was produced around 1770 during the manufactory’s first period of operations, which spanned three decades from 1751 to 1783. In the mid-19th century, the manufactory changed ownership once again and was renamed as Worcester Royal Porcelain Company Ltd. in 1862.
Sweet chestnuts have been used in European cuisine for over 2,000 years. The Romans took them along on their military campaigns as dry food, thus
spreading them across much of Europe. Chestnuts remained popular until the second half of the 19th century as an essential staple food prior to the introduction of potatoes. Sweet chestnut (Castanea sativa) was once known as the ‘bread tree’ due to its flour being used in bread-making, in combination with grain flours. Chestnuts were boiled, fried, served as accompaniments to meat dishes, used as stuffing in poultry roasts, utilised in soups, mashed in purée and even glazed and used in desserts. In the 18th century, the gentry would serve sweet chestnuts glazed in sugar, honey and wine at their Christmas balls. Once known as ‘poor man’s food’ for enabling the lower classes to survive the harsh, cold winters, chestnuts acquired the status of a delicacy.
The shape of the chestnut basket was determined by their cooking and consumption method. Sweet chestnuts were fried on a pan over open fire to break their tough, brown shell, and release their characteristic nutty aroma and flavour. Hence, the baskets were designed for serving hot, peeled chestnuts. The perforated edges and lids allowed the hot steam to escape, ensuring the safe enjoyment of these treats. The holes also allowed for excess sugar syrup to drain through into the tray.
In the 18th and 19th century, chestnut baskets with trays were produced by various European porcelain and faience manufactories, including those in Sèvres, Meissen, Berlin, Vienna, Caughley, Derby, Worcester, Wedgwood, Stoke-on-Trent, Ludwigsburg, Marieberg, and elsewhere. They were also manufactured in China for the European market.
Around 1790, Duke Peter of Courland and Semigallia commissioned the ‘Courland Dinner-Set’ from the Royal Porcelain Manufactory in Berlin, which likely featured chestnut baskets. This is suggested by the fact that the same manufactory produced a ‘Grand Duke of Courland’ pattern dinner-service for Henry Bathurst, 3rd Earl of Bathurst (1762–1834) who served as Great Britain’s Secretary of State for War and the Colonies. The service included four octagonal chestnut baskets of delicate openwork detailing with vertical perforations and two side handles, accompanied by serving trays.
The chestnut basket in the RPM’s collection has an oval, four-leaf shape that expands upwards and resembles a stylised beehive, with a honeycomb relief pattern and decoration featuring blue flowers or stylised bees, with two twisted handles imitating wickerwork. Along the inner upper edge of the basket runs a band of trellis and floral ornaments. The lid is designed with ribbed, elongated openings, adorned with floral and leaf reliefs. Along the edge runs a band of trellis and floral ornaments, while the centre of the lid is a delicate oval openwork trellis with a relief border imitating woven texture. Above the trellis, a curved handle is decorated with a flower and leaf relief. The inside is adorned with a painting of flowers, tiny leaves and branches, poppy pods and a pomegranate. The basket is 13cm high and 21cm wide. The tray has, regrettably, been lost. Typically, however, the tray would have had an oval shape with two handles. The inside of the tray was usually painted with flower, leaf or fruit ornaments. The pinecone motif was also widely used.
In 1975 and 1977, the RPM bought several tableware items of a faience dinner-service from a private individual in Sesava Parish, including a tureen, two sauceboats, a roast serving tray, 19 plates, a sweetmeat dish and two trays produced by Wedgwood Manufactory in Great Britain. The sweetmeat dish was later referred to as a bread dish, though further research revealed it to be a chestnut basket with a tray.
Although the set once contained two chestnut baskets, only a tray from the second one remains. According to legend, the tableware items were once located in a manor house near Eleja, close to the border with Lithuania. The marks on the tableware indicate that the pieces were produced between 1872–1897, though their shape and ornamentation, which remained popular until the early 20th century, date back to the 1780s.
The Wedgwood Manufactory was founded in 1759 in Staffordshire by the British potter Josiah Wedgwood (1730–1795). In 1769, together with his partner Thomas Bentley (1731–1780), Josiah built a factory in Burslem, known as Etruria Works. In 1940, the factory was moved to Barlaston, where it remains to this day. The tableware items were produced from a cream-coloured faience body, developed around 1750 in Staffordshire, which had been an important centre of ceramic production since the early 17th century. The cream-coloured tableware, known as creamware, was popular from the mid-18th century to the early 20th century.
The oval-shaped chestnut basket rests on a base that imitates a woven rope. The central section of the dish features a relief that mimics wickerwork, with an oval motif in the middle that imitates a braid and a rhombus with a cross inside. The rim slopes upwards and is made of delicate openwork, shaped in an S-curve that imitates thin strips of wicker, tied at the centre, resembling a ribbon. Along the edge runs a raised border imitating wickerwork.
The oval tray is also designed to resemble wickerwork, featuring a central rhombus shape with a cross and a scalloped rim with petal-shaped perforations. The underside of the base contains the impressed marks ‘WEDGWOOD’ and ‘M’, indicating that the basket and the tray were produced in 1884. In 1860, the factory added letters to its markings, which were printed on the faience body next to the Wedgewood name, to provide precise dating of production. Each year was marked by a different letter. Since 1891, the word ‘England’ was also added to the mark.
Author: Dzintra Miķelsone
RPM Collections and Scientific Research Department
08.08.2025