How an Earthenware Plate From the 17th-Century Became the Hottest Accessory of the Year

Over the years I’ve repeatedly seenthisviral picture of a tin-glazed earthenware plate from 1661 recirculated everywhere fromTumblrand Instagram to Twitter and Facebook. In 2019, the composer Vanessa Rossetto used the 17th-century plate asthe cover for her album of the same name. But a few months ago, I clutched my chest when I randomly came across thisPuppets & Puppetspurse with a hand-painted resin plate written in the same style for $575. Then I found out that S.S.DALEY’sFall 2022collection featured aDua Lipa-approved merino sweater embroidered with the words “You & I are Earth.” (Thesold-out knit crewneck, which was also spotted onJinandEddie Redmayne, cost $820.) Salter House recently debuted a collaboration with the Italian studio Ceramiche Rampini that features aplatewith a similar style, though their design specifically references Delft Merryman.

Carly Mark, founder ofPuppets & Puppets, was initially exposed to the earthenware plate through social media. “It showed up on my Instagram feed at a certain point and I remember being moved by how profound the statement was,” she writes in an email. “It somehow also feels like a modern object.” Much to Carly’s delight, fans were even more excited than she was about the You and I are Earth bag when it was released in theFall/Winter 2022 collection. “I made it for the Coven season which felt appropriate,” she adds.

More than the striking image of the plate itself, what really spoke to Carly was the ethos for “real human connection and how temporary our time here is.” She thinks that others are deeply moved by the blue inscription on this particular plate because “it’s so true.” As the fashion designer further explains, “It’s talking about the ephemerality of being alive in a very romantic and real way. Especially because the original owners have gone back to being Earth at this point.”

It’s a message that speaks volumes, especially to someone like Vanessa, who was so moved by the phrase that she was inspired to create an album around it within the context of loss. “It could either be addressing the temporality of human existence and people’s mortality, or you could think of it as ‘you and I, we’re the bedrock of the world,’” she says.

Vanessa became obsessed with the plate the moment she randomly came across it online about six years ago and hasn’t been able to get it off her mind since. “It just really stuck with me,” she recalls. “I’d saved the image, I’d always kept it around, and was looking at it and thinking about it. I thought that it was not only beautiful visually as an object, but that the phrase was really beautiful.” For her, what really stands out is that the plate “was just discarded and, for all intents and purposes, lost to the world.” She adds, “there’s so much that’s not known, which kind of makes it almost more interesting, but at the same time, would be great to know.”

Carly admits that she decided against researching the plate because “the mystery surrounding it was really beautiful to me.” While the real story behind the plate’s creation will remain an enigma, history confirms that it appeared during the most devastating disasters inLondonfrom that period: the Great Plague (1602) and the Great Fire (1666). Somehow, this Dutch-made earthenware plate survived through the absolute worst of times, and eventually found its way from the murky depths of a London sewer to theWellcome Collection, where it was showcased in an exhibition called “Dirt: The Filthy Reality of Everyday Life” precisely 400 years later. Since then, the plate—once described as “one of the most poignant objects” byThe Guardian—has been housed at the Museum of London.

In a conversation withThe Guardianabout “Dirt,” curator Kate Forde said that the plate was “a metaphor for the whole exhibition” because it’s made out of clay, which is a material from the earth—the overarching theme was inspired by the observations of anthropologist Mary Douglas. In another interview withArtforum同年,她强调这个集合was “inviting us to reexamine our attitudes toward the things we forget, cast off, or leave for others to find.” This is something that I’ve been thinking about more lately as I frequentestate sales,flea markets, and antique shows, where the most meaningful objects from someone’s personal collection are auctioned off. When you consider what will be left behind when you’re gone, and all the things that will outlast you, it puts so much into perspective about what it means to belong somewhere or to something. What do theseobjectssay about the people that once lived with them?

Whenever this plate resurfaces, it causes a chain reaction of delightful delirium. “You and I are Earth” has become a modern memento mori that is so powerful that people are willing to get it tattooed on their bodies—search #youandiareearth on Instagram and you’ll see plenty of evidence. “That’s gained even more meaning now post-pandemic too,” Vanessa says about the plate’s inscription. “Before the pandemic even happened I was working with these ideas so now I feel like it’s got another layer of resonance for people. I’ve seen it as an image shared more since the pandemic.”

The albumyou & i are earthopens with a song called“the dirt,”其中包括叶片的音频吗a’s mother recounting memories of London after The Blitz during World War II. “One of the pieces discusses her friend trying to find her mother who was missing in the rubble after the bombing in London,” explains Vanessa. “She said she was digging through the dirt, that phrase is used in the music, and it tied together to me and made me want to use the plate design for the album artwork.”

In 2021, the “You & I are Earth” plate was mentioned in Christina J. Farada’s review ofMarking Time: Objects, People, and Their Lives, 1500-1800forApollo188金宝. The art historian applauds how this domestic object “confronts the viewer with their own earthliness,” serving as a reminder of our mortality: “For me, this plate has always distilled the shock of recognition and excitement inherent in the study of material culture: the way ‘things’ can stitch up time, joining two very distant moments and people through a single object.”

The lifespan of this plate is undeniable as we continue to feed into our existential dread through niche corners of the Internet, doomscrolling until we receive a message in the void that is loud and clear. “It has so much meaning to me that my partner, who actually designed the [‘you & i are earth’] album cover, had a replica of the plate made for me,” Vanessa confesses. So the next time you find yourself contemplating the cyclical nature oftrends, remember that there’s never been a better time to put yourplates on the walls—or have themprotruding from the bust(and butt) of atoile printeddress a la Puppets & Puppets.