Typical of Neoclassical taste, the design of these gently scalloped soft paste porcelain soup plates is built around two simple, prominent devices; a deep blue and gilt band around the rim and a simple bell-flower and vine arrangement in the center.

The deep blue border is trimmed with a heavy gilt edge on each side as well as a gilt chain pattern in the center of the field.  A scalloped pinstripe at the inner edge of the border echoes the soft scalloped profile of the porcelain blank.

Continuing the deep blue and gilt formula, the center is decorated with a gilt bell-flower and a leafy vine which playfully dances around a deep blue ring which frames the arrangement.  

The period in which the Flight family had sole ownership of the Worcester factory, 1783-1792, coincides with the shift from the Rococo of the 18th century to the Neoclassical, which first appeared in architecture around 1780 and continued into the 19th century. The pattern of these soup plates is one of a number of lighter scaled, blue-border patterns designed in response to this shift in taste.  Simon Spero and John Sandon discuss this class of patterns in their catalog, Worcester Porcelain, 1751-1790: The Zorensky Collection (1996, pp. 294-308).  

In his work on the various Flight and Barr partnerships, Flight and Barr Worcester Porcelain, 1783-1840, Henry Sandon illustrates a soup tureen--courtesy of Geoffrey Godden--in the same pattern as these soup plates and with the same mark  (pl.10, p. 22). Sandon provides us with the 1790 production date.