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A beautiful example of faience parlante, the French ceramic ware produced in Nevers, France during the Revolutionary period. This plate, created in 1791, was designed not for table use, but for display to announce the owner's revolutionary sympathy with the momentous events of 1789.
The image shows a peasant, wearied by carrying the weight of the two noble estates (the nobles of the sword-aristocrats, and the nobles of the robe - clergy), laying down their emblems, a sword and a bishop's crook, and declaring, "I am tired of carrying them."
This is an original item from 1791; not a later nineteenth century reproduction, of which there are many.
