Ralph's name appears on many typical Toft-style dishes decorated with a double-headed eagle, cavaliers and ladies, or with a mermaid, two being dated 1676 and 1766.

Contemporary presentations included squiggles of sauces and tall food, like a napoleon layered with crisp polenta, grilled portobello and fontina, a grilled sea scallop topping the lot, and dishes decorated with chive antennae.

Mr Ba and his family hosted a magnificent dinner for several guests, the dishes decorated with small cucumber sculptures of boatmen and peasants.

The gathering of the marriage tribute adjourned until the next day, while the cooks produced exotic dishes decorated with paper symbols for luck.

The pottery is best known for its lamps, "pebble" vases and dishes decorated with hand-painted fish.

The Odinov culture is notable for its ceramics with dishes decorated with comb impressions with or without rows of pit indentations, coarse textile prints, some pit ornament elements form geometrical figures.

She saw the familiar faces-the woman who sold dishes decorated with gaily painted enamel flowers, the man who filled gallon cans with kerosene for lanterns, the old man who fixed broken bicycles.

He studied a shallow wide-lipped dish, decorated with deep, dull colors.

The Idemitsu also shopped at Christie's in London, where in 1982 it paid $618,624 for the 15th-century blue-and-white dish decorated with a pomegranate branch bordered by fruit sprays.

The rough forms and the earth colors dribbled on the surfaces are arresting, especially on a dish decorated with a heron, its rim covered with calligraphic images.