Tin Plates or Sèvres China?

I recently posted an image on my Instagram feed, and got a lot of compliments and comments about the plate. Although it looks quite fancy, it’s actually a tin plate and is just the thing for a late afternoon snack in the garden or a picnic at the horse races.

I think I picked up the first one or two of these at a museum shop, and over the years, I have accumulated about a dozen of them in total. They are all copies of antique china patterns, including Sèvres from Chatsworth in England and the Hermitage in Russia. Most of the plates I have are from the Wallace Collection in London or Mottahedeh here in the States. Occasionally, you can find them in the gift shops at house museums. When Restoration Hardware was what it used to be, and not all this over-sized crap, you could find specialty sets of tin picnic plates. I picked up a set of circus plates for my nieces and nephew and a set of Christmas plates. Another source is eBay. I have had mine for about ten or more years, and use them with some frequency. They are lightweight and very durable. I don’t put them (or anything else) in the dishwasher, so I can’t speak to how well they’d hold up if put in the washer.

When I am eating outside, I grab one of these plates because I don’t have any worries about it breaking. And we always use them for our tailgate at the Hunt Cup. My friend’s plates are on the right and one of mine is on the left.

Legend has it that Annette de la Renta bought hundreds of these plates for her daughter’s wedding dinner. They were featured in the pages of Vogue and became quite the chic item to acquire.

The other brilliant thing about these places are that they’re totally green – no plastic at picnics and you can use them over and over again.