Argillite plates, platters, and bowls, some made with elaborate pedestals and lids, became popular articles of trade in the middle of the nineteenth century. For the sake of distinction, a plate would be round and often quite shallow, with relief-carved formline design on the inner surface and a flattened center on the back to give it stability. A shallow oval form would be a platter, with otherwise similar characteristics to a plate. Some, like the subject example, include a three-dimensional figure carved within the depth of the vessel from the same piece of argillite. A frog appears thus in the subject platter. Often the wide, flat rim is inlaid with either abalone shell or ivory pieces cut to various shapes. Such plates, platters, and bowls were not made for use as food dishes, but for display only. These objects required a very large piece of argillite to begin with. To carve such elegant, symmetrical shapes out of random pieces of stone called for major effort and large source material. For these reasons and others large objects of this type are seldom if ever made today.

Steven C. Brown