Porcelain-Dresser Plate

Q: I just got a set of dessert plates with blue and white plaid transfer borders and black and white transfer designs in the center. The mark on the back says ‘Vieillard & Cie, Porcelaine D. Johnston’ on a ribbon curled around an Asian man. There’s a cute boy and girl in old-fashioned dress on each plate along with a French saying. I have been told the plates are 19th-century ‘dirty jokes.’ The French is difficult to translate, but one plate says ‘Le droit du Seigneur,’ meaning ‘The right of the lord.’ A man is trying to kiss the girl in the picture.

A: Your plates are subtle jokes. ‘The right of the lord’ refers to the 18th-century privilege of the lord of the manor to ‘deflower’ each virgin before her marriage. The risqué element of the design adds to the value today. The mark was used by Jules Vieillard of Bordeaux, France, after 1845. He bought the pottery from David Johnston & Co. The company made many sets of 7 1/2-inch plates that could be used for dessert or salad. They were not made as part of a dinner set.