Food warmer with insert ca. 1730–35 Vienna This unusual vessel was made with an accompanying inner porcelain sleeve that is open at both the top and the bottom. When inserted, the sleeve rests on an inner ledge approximately four inches above the base of the vessel, and it extends slightly above the vessel’s top. The domed cover fits snugly over the projecting sleeve. The sleeve almost certainly supported a liner, now missing, probably made of metal.[1] It is very likely that this vessel was intended to serve as a food warmer with the metal liner containing a porridge or soup kept warm by a ca

Food warmer with insert ca. 1730–35 Vienna This unusual vessel was made with an accompanying inner porcelain sleeve that is open at both the top and the bottom. When inserted, the sleeve rests on an inner ledge approximately four inches above the base of the vessel, and it extends slightly above the vessel’s top. The domed cover fits snugly over the projecting sleeve. The sleeve almost certainly supported a liner, now missing, probably made of metal.[1] It is very likely that this vessel was intended to serve as a food warmer with the metal liner containing a porridge or soup kept warm by a candle burning beneath the sleeve at the base of the vessel. The open trelliswork design of the vessel’s lower section provided the necessary air for the candle to burn, while the faux trellis pattern on the cover continued this design element and at the same time allowed the contents to remain warm. Food warmers, such as this one, were intended for individual use, and this example and others made at the Claudius Innocentius Du Paquier factory almost certainly were produced as self-contained objects rather than as part of a larger set of dining wares.[2] A food warmer would have been used in the private quarters of a house, where a simple meal could be consumed in the morning or evening independent of more ritualized dining warmers were made by a number of European porcelain factories in the eighteenth century, but those made at Du Paquier were distinctive in having the tall sleeve that required a presumably additional metal liner. The large size, complex form, and elaborate painted decoration of those produced at Du Paquier suggest that they were intended as much for display as for use. The singular design of the vessel, with its chamfered corners, prominent moldings, stepped base, trelliswork patterns, and tall domed cover, creates essentially a piece of small- scale porcelain architecture. Its vertical format and sense of monumentality, despite its size, rec

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