Chinese porcelain dish (plate) with its various parts. Chinese porcelain includes many shapes that fall between shallow bowls and various flat wares. For this reason the general term dish is often preferred in descriptions of both plates and dishes.
Courtesy: Giovanni Repetti, Gotheborg Discussion Board © 2026.
Plates have a long history, dating back thousands of years. Plates have evolved from primitive, natural vessels like leaves, shells, and flat breads (trenchers) to wood, metals and ceramics. As different cultures developed, so did the shape, material, and significance of the objects they used to dine. The 18th-century development of European porcelain and the 19th-century mass production made ceramic plates available to all.
Chinese porcelain includes many shapes that fall between shallow bowls and various flat wares. For this reason the general term dish is often preferred in descriptions of both plates and dishes.
The terminology used to describe specific parts of plates and dishes falls broadly into four groups: names for the physical parts of the vessel, names describing the shape of those parts, and names describing the framework how any decoration is organized, and the decoration itself.
These distinction are useful because several terms overlap in everyday use while museum catalogues tend to separate them more carefully. In museum descriptions it is more important to use terms that are uniquely referring to a specific part of a vessel, rather then comparative terms like well, mirror or lip. Cavetto is for example a very precise part while "well" or "bottom" could be anything inside the rim.
Most common name for the front side of a plate is face while a museum might prefer obverse for the top side and reverse for the underside.
The rim is the outer edge of a plate or dish. In common usage the term may also refer to the entire flat area between the outer edge and the cavetto. The rim may be described as plain, lobed, barbed, foliated, scalloped, etc. and this is regardless of it is referring to just the outer edge or the whole area since its could be understood by context.
The marli is the flat outer part of a plate surrounding the center. In Swedish the corresponding term is brätte. The broader English word rim is often used, although the French term marli more precisely describes the flat border area.
During the 17th and early 18th centuries the wide rim became an important feature of Baroque table presentation. Dining at European courts developed into highly theatrical displays in which large services were arranged symmetrically on the table, a style known as service à la française. The wide rim helped maintain visual uniformity across large services and allowed decorative borders to remain visible while food was served in the center.
Chinese export porcelain made for the European market adopted the same format of a plain central field for food surrounded by a richly decorated rim.
The sloping surface between the rim and the center is called Cavetto. It is the concave interior wall of a plate or dish. The depth of the cavetto ranges from very shallow in flat plates to deeper in dishes intended for liquids or sauces. This is the area that separates the depressed center of a dish from the rim.
Different traditions sometimes use slightly different names. Among English collectors the sloping inner wall between rim and the flat central area is usually called the well. Sometimes well is used to cover the entire area inside the rim.
In particular to plates or dishes intended for soup, the cavetto and center is considered as one and then called a well. A soup plate would have a much deeper well and wide rim ("lip"). If the well is deep and there is no lip, it is a bowl.
The center is the common term for the flat central area of the plate or dish. If decorated, this is where the main painted scene or motif is placed. Center is the straightforward descriptive term while mirror occurs as a catalogue term. Both implying a flat central field.
The base is the underside of a ceramic vessel. When a foot ring is present, the base refers to the surface inside the foot ring. If no foot ring is present, the base is the flat area of the underside on which the vessel rests. The base may be glazed or unglazed and can contain marks, inscriptions, and a variety of unintended firing imperfections such as scars, pinpricks, or rough areas left by firing supports or by contact with kiln implements, grit and particles of kiln debris. Uneven kiln atmosphere may also produce discoloration on the base surface. The bottom is a broader and less technical term. It refers to the entire underside of the vessel.
The ring-shaped base on which a ceramic vessel rests. The foot ring is an integral part of the vessel and may be formed by turning, cutting, moulding, or by adding a coil of clay. When the usually unglazed ring is cut out as a part of the base, the term foot rim might fill a purpose. "Foot ring" is the standard term (OED) but can also be written as "foot-ring" (hyphenated). The term first seen in 1704.
These terms describe how those physical areas are shaped by modifying existing parts. Examples:
Chinese decorative art is often composed of clearly defined motifs, such as birds, flowers, animals, landscapes, or symbolic objects.
This will serve as an example. For catalogue descriptions it is usually enough to classify motifs as:
Motifs are arranged within a decorative framework, such as borders, panels, medallions, or reserves, which organize the surface of the vessel.
These are compositional devices that define where decoration sits. They organize the surface but are not the decoration itself. Examples:
Museum and auction catalogue descriptions commonly move from form to decoration; Front first, from the rim inwards, then underside, from the rim inwards. Last, foot ring and bottom inside foot ring. Added details: Size, condition, price, provenance, current owner, collection identity number.
Example:
A dish with barbed rim decorated with floral sprays, inside the rim, the cavetto is plain, the center painted with a deer in a garden scene, the underside of the rim with flowers sprays and the base with a neatly cut foot ring. No marks. Date, size and condition.
As an art historian, or as a collector, it is good practice to write down and describe what you actually see. In those cases it is useful to have a correct terminology and follow a standardized order in the descriptions.
For collectors: use the simplest and clearest working terms for your purpose. Position it geographically. Describe form and decoration first, then date, and finish with technical detail that helps define the object. For the decoration go from inside and out and last its base. Go from the rim and inwards and then the same for the underside, from the rim inwards, ending with foot ring and base. For bowls, go from the outside first, then inside, top to bottom, base last. There are no rules really but it pays to be consistent.
See also: Shapes, ceramic
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