A Stapled Plate

From time to time, we find a piece of pottery with mending holes in it.  I’ve always understood certain types of ancient table wares were worth mending. They were either heirloom quality or valuable to their present owners even in their damaged state.

Recently as my parents cleaned out the basement of their home, some pieces of cut-glass table ware were passed on to me, including this piece mended with what appear to be lead staples.

The staples do not go all the way throughout the glass and the break appears to have been clean. There is a very slight discoloration of the glass suggestion some kind of glue might have been used to seal the crack. I suspect this kind of repair to date to the first half of the 20th century.

I suppose the plate was probably a salad bowl or designed to accommodate some kind of small dish.  It measures less than 15 cm in diameter. I suppose it was suceptible to repair because it was not designed to hold liquid and it was a fairly nice piece of cut-glass (I suppose, but I really don’t know).

It is a sad testimony to our disposable culture and dependence on mass-production to see something like this as an object of remarkable curiosity.