Large delftware dishes, known today as chargers, were made between about 1600 and 1740. Most of them are decorated with variants of a few simple themes: geometrical patterns, fruit and foliage, tulips and other flowers arranged in a vase or growing from a mound, Adam and Eve with the Tree of Knowledge, and portraits of monarchs or other persons. Less common subjects include biblical scenes, the royal yacht, windmills, and unicorns. The rims are usually encircled by slanting blue dashes, hence the term ‘blue dash chargers’ coined by the Rev. E.A. Downman, who published a book with that titlein 1919.

Tulip mania developed in Holland during the 1620s and 1630s and spread from there to England and other Western European countries. After the Restoration in 1660, Dutch influence on the arts in England was very strong and for about thirty years floral decoration of all kinds, including cut flowers in vases, was extremely fashionable. Tulip chargers were an expression of this love of flowers. This is the earliest dated example with a blue dash edge but they were probably made from the late 1650s. Unlike most chargers which have curved sides, it has a shallow well and a broad rim decorated with pomegranates and parti-coloured leaves. These originated on the Continent but their arrangement in panels alternating with panels of trellis pattern suggests that the decorator was influenced by the borders of Chinese blue and white porcelain dishes of the Wanli period (1573–1619).