Benjamin Harrison (1833-1901)
President, 1889-93
Caroline Scott Harrison (1832–1892), an avid china painter, designed a new dining service of soup, dinner, breakfast, and tea plates with references to the Lincoln state service in the overall shape and in the inclusion of the Arms of the United States at the center. American flora were represented by the corn and goldenrod traced in gold on the border. Her designs were given in 1891 to the Washington, D.C., retail firm M. W. Beveridge, which secured sample plates from several factories in Limoges. Mrs. Harrison chose the plate made by Tressemanes and Vogt, a Limoges factory directed by the retail firm Vogt and Dose in New York. The original order of plates was received in December 1891; two years later, five dozen after-dinner coffee cups were added. Reorders arrived in 1898, during the McKinley administration, and in 1908, during the Theodore Roosevelt administration. The 1908 supplements were supplied by Dulin and Martin Company, successors (after 1899) to Beveridge. The plates reordered by the White House from Beveridge and Dulin and Martin and those made for sale to the general public all bear marks differing slightly from those found on the pieces from the 1891 order.1 Susan Gray Detweiler, from American Presidential China: The Robert L. McNeil, Jr. Collection at the Philadelphia Museum of Art (2008), p. 69.
Notes:
1) Klapthor et al., Official White House China, p. 290.
