UC Davis

In 1760, London’s Chelsea Porcelain Factory produced an opulent perfume vase with a reserve painting after François Boucher’s Jupiter in the Guise of Diana and Callisto (1759) amongst a background of painted life-size flora as part of their Gold Anchor Wares. Considering the visually sapphic scene, non-native flowers, and inspiration from the Continental porcelain factories of Meissen and Sèvres, this thesis provides a potential queer reading of the Callisto Vase that places it among broader themes of luxury, Continental influence, the classics, and botanical colonialism that permeated Georgian England. While other scholars have considered the connection between male homosexuality and eighteenth-century porcelain, this research is one of the first of its kind to explore the female homosexuality within eighteenth-century porcelain.