# Plate from the Society of the Cincinnati Service of George Washington > Chinese export porcelain workshops, Jingdezhen and Canton - ca. 1785 > Canonical HTML: https://iconotheca.com/artworks/chinese-export-porcelain-cincinnati-service/cincinnati-service-plate-washington-met/ > Published by Servola Systems GmbH. Last verified: 2026-09-03 ## Tombstone - **Artist:** Chinese export porcelain workshops, Jingdezhen and Canton - **Date:** ca. 1785 - **Medium:** Hard-paste porcelain, underglaze cobalt blue (Fitzhugh border) with overglaze polychrome enamel and gilding (Angel of Fame and eagle insignia) - **Dimensions:** Diam. 24.1 cm (9 1/2 in.) - **Object type:** Ceramic - **Period:** Qing dynasty export ware, made for the American market - **Current location:** Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, The American Wing (Gallery 704) - **Attribution:** accepted ## Summary One plate from the 302-piece Chinese export service that Henry "Light-Horse Harry" Lee bought for George Washington in 1786, painted with the Fitzhugh border and the winged figure of Fame holding the badge of the Society of the Cincinnati, the hereditary officers' society that Jefferson, Franklin and Aedanus Burke had spent the previous three years attacking as the seed of an American nobility. Washington commissioned it as the Society's own first president, two years after he had personally forced the hereditary clause out of its charter under threat of resignation, and used it at Mount Vernon and in his presidential households.The service descended through Martha Washington's family to Arlington House, was seized with the rest of the Custis-Lee property when the Civil War began, spent forty years on federal museum display, and was released back to the family only in 1901. It has been scattered ever since among at least seven public collections, and the pattern's fame has made it one of the most reproduced and one of the most forged classes of American-market export porcelain there is. This plate's own route from that dispersal into the Metropolitan Museum in 1917 is not documented in the sources consulted; it enters this record only at the point the Museum's own accession begins. ## Provenance Every link carries a grade. `documented` means a cited source supports it, `disputed` means the identification is argued but not established, `unknown` means we have no owner for that span and have not bridged it. - **c. 1784-1786** Chinese export porcelain workshops, Jingdezhen and Canton, to the commission of Samuel Shaw for the Society of the Cincinnati `[documented]` (manufacture, to commission) Documented for the pattern and the 302-piece service generally, not for this individual plate; L'Enfant's eagle design was approved 10 June 1783, carried to Canton by Shaw in 1784, and executed by an unnamed Chinese enameller about 1784-85. - **1786-1799** George Washington, Mount Vernon and the presidential households in New York and Philadelphia `[documented]` (purchase) Documented for the service generally. Purchased through Henry Lee from Constable, Rucker & Co. for about $150; sources differ on the exact month of purchase and delivery (see open questions). - **1799-1857** Martha Washington, then George Washington Parke Custis, Arlington House `[documented]` (inheritance) Documented for the service generally by the Diplomatic Reception Rooms' own account; the exact date and mechanism of the transfer from Martha Washington's household to her grandson is not given in the sources consulted. - **1857-1861** Mary Anna Randolph Custis Lee and Robert E. Lee, Arlington House `[documented]` (inheritance under G. W. P. Custis's will) Documented for the service generally. Custis's will passed Arlington and its contents to his daughter for her lifetime, with remainder to her eldest son, George Washington Custis Lee. - **1861-1901** Confiscated by Union forces; held and displayed at the United States Patent Office and the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum `[documented]` (confiscation and public display) Documented for the service generally, and distinct from the separate real-estate confiscation of Arlington House itself, which was resolved through the courts in 1882-83 rather than by executive order. - **1901** Released by order of President McKinley to the Custis-Lee family `[disputed]` (restitution) The fact of the 1901 release, including the china, is documented in outline by the Diplomatic Reception Rooms' own catalogue and by secondary literature citing a 2016 doctoral dissertation. The exact date within 1901, the legal mechanism, and the identity of the specific recipient are inconsistently reported in the sources consulted and have not been resolved here; see open questions. - **1901-1917** Unknown `[unknown]` (gap) No source consulted traces this individual plate, as opposed to the service generally, through this period. It may have remained with the family group released in 1901, or it may have already separated from the main body of the service at an earlier, unrecorded date. - **1917-present** Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York `[documented]` (acquisition) Acquired with the Rogers Fund, 1917. No dealer or seller is named in the sources consulted. ## Auction results Hammer and buyer's premium are stated separately. Where a source conflates them this record says so. - **** , - No auction history for this specific plate was found in the sources consulted; it entered the Metropolitan Museum by direct purchase with the Rogers Fund in 1917, not through a recorded public sale. A related plate from the same service entered the State Department's Diplomatic Reception Rooms by private purchase from a named owner, Mrs. Ludwell L. Montague, again not at auction. ## Open questions - Where was this specific plate between its manufacture about 1785 and the Metropolitan Museum's Rogers Fund purchase in 1917? The Museum's own record supplies no earlier owner, and nothing in the sources consulted here ties accession 17.73 in particular, as opposed to the service generally, to Arlington House or the 1901 family release. - Who sold this plate to the Museum in 1917, and through what dealer, if any? No seller or intermediary is named in the sources consulted. - What was the exact date and legal or administrative mechanism of the 1901 release of the Cincinnati china from federal custody, and which family member, Mary Custis Lee or her brother George Washington Custis Lee, was the recipient of record? The State Department's own account names both Mary Custis Lee and Mary Anna Randolph Custis Lee, the second of whom had died in 1873; that inconsistency has not been resolved here and needs a primary source, ideally the National Archives record or Hannah Boettcher's 2016 dissertation on the subject, which this record was not able to consult directly. - Has this specific plate ever been tested by X-ray fluorescence or examined under raking light, the methods that have exposed both a group of 1920s-30s forgeries and at least one later-enriched genuine piece elsewhere in this pattern? No published technical report on accession 17.73 was found. - How many of the original 302 pieces survive today, and in how many collections? This record independently verifies holdings at the Society of the Cincinnati's own museum, Mount Vernon, Winterthur, the Cincinnati Art Museum, the National Gallery of Art, the State Department and the Metropolitan Museum, but no scholarly total or full census was found, and none is claimed here. - Is there a primary-source statement from Samuel Adams specifically on the Society of the Cincinnati, as distinct from his later, general correspondence on hereditary government? Secondary literature credits him with opposing the Society, but no directly quotable statement of his on this particular controversy was confirmed in the sources consulted, unlike the documented statements of Franklin, Jefferson and Burke. - Which month in 1786 did Henry Lee actually complete the purchase, and which month did the finished service reach Washington? The Society's own account gives July 1786 for purchase and 31 October 1786 for arrival at Mount Vernon; the State Department's account of a related plate gives August 1786 for the New York purchase and September 1786 for Washington's receipt of it. The discrepancy has not been reconciled here. ## Sources - [1] Metropolitan Museum of Art, Collection API record for Object ID 5977 (Accession 17.73), Plate, Chinese, for American market, ca. 1785, Rogers Fund, 1917. - [2] American Revolution Institute of the Society of the Cincinnati, 'Society of the Cincinnati Porcelain.' - [3] The Society of the Cincinnati, 'The Society of the Cincinnati Chinese Export Porcelain.' Institutional history; treated here as the Society's own account rather than a neutral third party. - [4] Wikipedia, 'Empress of China (1783).' Flagged as a tertiary source for the voyage dates and Canton System detail; recommended for replacement with a scholarly history of the Old China Trade. - [5] Wikipedia, 'Society of the Cincinnati.' Flagged as a tertiary source for the founding, the 1783-84 controversy, and the 1784 reform and its reversal; recommended for replacement with Minor Myers, Jr., 'Liberty Without Anarchy: A History of the Society of the Cincinnati,' or an equivalent scholarly monograph. - [6] Wikipedia, 'Aedanus Burke.' Flagged as a tertiary source; recommended for replacement with a facsimile or critical edition of Burke's 1783 pamphlet itself. - [7] Thomas Jefferson to George Washington, 16 April 1784, hosted in transcription at Wikisource. Recommended cross-check against the critical edition at Founders Online, National Archives. - [8] The Papers of George Washington (University of Virginia), 'Observations on the Institution of the Society of Cincinnati,' May 1784. - [9] U.S. Department of State, Diplomatic Reception Rooms, 'Chinese Export Porcelain Plate from George Washington's Society of the Cincinnati Service.' - [10] Wikipedia, 'Mary Custis Lee,' citing Hannah Boettcher, 'Mary Custis Lee unpacks the Washington relics: a revolutionary inheritance in museums, 1901-1918' (University of Delaware, 2016). Flagged as a tertiary source; the Boettcher dissertation itself is recommended as the primary scholarly source for the 1901 release and was not able to be consulted directly for this record. - [11] Smithsonian Magazine, 'How Arlington National Cemetery Came to Be.' - [12] Winterthur Museum, 'Treasures on Trial: The Art and Science of Detecting Fakes,' Society of Cincinnati case study. - [13] Chipstone Foundation, Ceramics in America 2016, 'A Group of Spurious Chinese Export Porcelain Decorated with the Arms of the Society of the Cincinnati.' - [14] Wikimedia Commons, File:Object 17.73, Plate - Chinese, for American market, The Metropolitan Museum of Art.jpg, sourced from the Metropolitan Museum's Open Access programme. - [15] Wikimedia Commons, File:Platter, part of 302-piece service commissioned by George Washington... Cincinnati Art Museum - DSC04568.JPG, photograph by Daderot, CC0. - [16] Wikimedia Commons, File:Society of the Cincinnati Plate, Jingdezhen, China, 1784-1785, hard-paste porcelain - National Gallery of Art, Washington - DSC09695.JPG, photograph by Daderot, CC0. - [17] Wikimedia Commons, File:James peale painting a miniature charles willson peale.jpg, painting by Charles Willson Peale, 1795, Detroit Institute of Arts, public domain. --- Images on this record are public domain or CC0 and are hosted by us. No image on this site is generated or simulated. If you quote this record, quote the provenance grades with it.