Dish: The Singular, Colorful, Wonderful Dinner Plate

A globe-trotting, century-hopping celebration of dishes

As every great hostess knows, the right dinner plates bring design, color, and drama to the table and elevate an ordinary meal into something special. Dish is a visual celebration of these everyday pieces of art that have been the objects of desire of kings, queens, brides, chefs, and hostesses for centuries.From the first wooden trenchers of the Middle Ages to the seventeenth-century China trade, from twentieth-century designer wares to the colorful melamine plates so widely available today, more than 800 plates are on display here. With insightful descriptions and an expert’s knowledge, author Shax Riegler makes the case that the dinner plate is so much more than just a vessel to deliver food; it’s a piece of art to be admired.These are plates created by storied masters such as Spode and Wedgwood, modernists like Russel Wright and Homer Laughlin, and even today’s contemporary designers like Vera Wang and Diane von Furstenberg. Dish shows them in full color with large photographs, detail shots, and even back-of-the-plate photos, delivering a feast for the eyes for obsessive fans and casual admirers alike.With a timeline of plate highlights in history, sidebars showcasing the most popular designers, and a list of the top 100 patterns of all time, Dish will leave readers looking at the common dinner plate in a whole new way.

Shax Riegler is the executive editor of House Beautiful. He’s previously worked at House & Garden, Martha Stewart Living,Travel + Leisure, and Vogue. He is completing a PhD from the Bard Graduate Center for Studies in the Decorative Arts, Design, and Culture.