Antique Reticulated Chestnut Bowl & Stand / Platter Black Transferware P J Boch Luxembourg

Here is a very, very rare chestnut bowl and stand dating to 1834-45 by P J Boch (Pierre Joseph Boch), son of the founder of the iconic Villeroy & Boch company, which remains still in business today. Chestnut bowls rarely survived due to their very fragile nature. Chestnuts were served in these Chinese style porcelain baskets, freshly roasted and peeled, then eaten like any nut. The slotted/reticulated bowl allowed the escape of steam from the hot chestnuts. 1829- While the second Boch generation achieved an optimised product quality by experimenting with materials, the third generation made a decisive leap with Jean-Francois Boch. Trained at the École de Sciences in Paris, the entrepreneur successfully develops a type of earthenware which is bright white and extremely hard. It looks deceptively like porcelain, but could be supplied considerably cheaper. This path democratised tableware. As a result of this early innovation, porcelain – the previously rare and costly, precious trea