Early juvenile feeding dishes often had an educational or even disciplinary theme, sometimes stern, sometimes amusing. This Bavaria porcelain baby plate depicts a pair of young Pierrots trying to smoke cigars. Unfortunately there is wear to one of the faces, but it's obvious that the smoke is making one boy cough or feel ill, and the other seems to be trying to show him the proper technique (or possibly taunting the reluctant Pierrot). A box of cigars is spilling out on the bench beside them. The words Baby's Plate appear underneath the scene, but the words are badly faded. It's an unusual theme for a child's dish.

The bowl is 7-1/2" diameter with a straight sided 1" deep rim. It probably dates to the first decade of the 1900s. The china is hard paste, very white in color with a shiny glaze. The back is marked in green PM Bavaria inside a wreath with a crown on top. This is a mark of the Moschendorf porcelain factory. As you can see the bowl was much used and does have design wear. There is one small, thin chip, barely bigger than a flake, on the underside of the rim (not visible from the top when looking down though you would probably see it if you were eye level to the rim). There are no other chips, and no hairlines, cracks, or crazing.