Untitled [(test plate) from the Dinner Party, 1976]

This 'test plate' is one of many produced during the making of Judy Chicago's "The Dinner Party" installation (1974-79). "The Dinner Party" is Chicago's most celebrated work and an icon of the feminist art movement. A collaborative project celebrating women throughout history in a large-scale table arranged with place settings for a pan-historical fantastic party, it included thirty-nine place settings, each with their own embroidered runners, utensils, chalices, and porcelain plates. The central motifs on the dinner plates were based on the butterfly, an ancient symbol of liberation and resurrection and evoked positive vaginal imagery. Taken together the imagery and the collaborative all-female workshop (directed by Chicago) that produced the piece was an assertion of strength and the power of female identity.