Ice-Cream Cooler
Maker Unknown
Date: 1778
Place Made: Sèvres, France
Materials & Techniques: Soft-paste porcelain, painted and gilded; hard-paste cameo heads
Dimensions: 23.7cm x 26.2cm
Accession Number: The Wallace Collection, C478
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This incredible object is an ice cream cooler. It was made in France 250 years ago and it belonged to Catherine the Great, Empress of Russia.
There are two bowls inside. The inner bowl had the ice cream in it and the outer bowl had ice in it to keep the ice cream cold. Look at the decoration. The handle to the lid looks like a frozen fountain.
The ice-cream cooler is made of porcelain. Porcelain is white clay that is heated in a special oven called a kiln. The colours were painted on one colour at a time and after each colour was added the ice-cream cooler went back into the kiln. Finally a glaze was used to coat two layers of paint and the ice-cream cooler was placed back in the kiln. The glaze, once it has been fired, protects the colours. Once out of the kiln the colour is permanent, it will not wash off or fade. Many pieces of porcelain broke in the kiln, so a piece like this that is decorated so beautifully and was heated many times without breaking is very valuable.
Teachers' Information
French art was highly fashionable across Europe during the 18th century. Sèvres porcelain was valued for the quality of its porcelain and the craftsmanship of its artists. It enjoyed commissions from the French court and Madame de Pompadour, mistress of the French king Louis XV, bought several pieces. Catherine the Great’s commission is an example of how sought after this porcelain was outside France. It is in keeping with the fashionable neoclassical style of the time.
The decoration of this ice cream cooler includes cameo heads and Jupiter with his thunderbolt in a horse-drawn chariot. Catherine the Great was very interested in the classical world. The inclusion of gods/goddesses on this dinner set draws an association between the Empress of Russia, Catherine the Great, and kings and rulers in the form of the ancient gods/goddesses.
Activities
1. Use this piece to talk to your class about Greek and Roman gods and goddess and what their different attributes are. Ask the children to pick a god or goddess to associate themselves with and to explain their choice.
2. Ask your children to think about what happens to different materials when we put them under different environmental controls. The porcelain is heated to make it strong and it is then able to with cope with direct contact with frozen objects. You could experiment with food items in the classroom, e.g. water becoming steam or ice, cream becoming ice cream, or talk about what happens to other materials such as wax or metal.
3. You could think about this being one object in a huge dinner set. Catherine the Great had almost 800 pieces in her dinner set. You could think about the process of hosting a large dinner party, from sending out invitations, preparing the menu, buying the food (and keeping to the budget!), preparing the food, welcoming the guests, providing waiters and waitresses. Ask the children to invite another class to afternoon tea (real or imaginary) and allow them to make all the arrangements.