Standards of luxury are often closely linked with objects. Value—whether monetary or sentimental, actual or perceived—is not static and can be determined by a complex range of variables. Connected to social and class status, porcelain wares from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were once tangible signifiers of wealth, position and power in Western Europe and the United States. Tables were piled with lavish settings of hand-decorated, fine porcelain—an ostentatious practice that related to ceremony, consumption, ritual and cultural identity.

Emphasizing the relationship between consumer practices and luxury goods, CONSUMING CLAY features historical tableware and decorative objects from premier Western European manufacturers such as Sèvres, Meissen, Höchst and Belleek as well as Chinese export ware.