Hors d'oeuvre sets - pots on wooden trays

The first image, showing four square dishes and two rectangular dishes, pattern 8084 of 1928, are likely to have been supplied as an hors d’oeuvre set on a tray. The illustration on the right, from Pottery Gazette, 1 August 1933, shows the typical arrangement and is part of a report describing exhibits at the 5^th Inter-national Exhibition of Decorative Arts in Milan: … examples of domestic earthenware bearing decorations that are truly modern. One of these, having simple bands of colour, is the No.8286, of which we give an illustration of a set of hors d’oeuvres dishes upon a wooden tray. (Note that pattern 8286 was created much earlier, probably in 1929). Other examples of wooden tray sets are also illustrated here, all being designs from 1936: pattern A3196 (six dishes on a square wooden tray), pattern A3403 (five identical dishes on a rectangular tray with a matching green edge-line), pattern A3761 (five identical dishes on a rectangular tray with a brown edge-line). Sets continued in production through into the 1950s – see pattern D373 as an example.