Franklin Pierce (1804-1869)
President, 1853-57

This state service, decorated in New York by the firm of Haughwout and Dailey on French white ware, was the first American-decorated porcelain table service purchased by the government for the White House. Haughwout and Dailey had exhibited porcelain of this design at the nation’s first world’s fair, the New York Exhibition in the Crystal Palace in 1853, with the express intention of attracting President Pierce’s patronage. The subsequent order comprised 287 pieces, including a centerpiece and both oval and round “high baskets.”¹ Susan Gray Detweiler, from American Presidential China: The Robert L. McNeil, Jr. Collection at the Philadelphia Museum of Art (2008), p. 47.

Notes:
1) Klapthor et al., Offical White House China, p. 77. The centerpiece was found in the attic of the White House by Mrs. Benjamin Harrison.