Lindsay Montgomery made this plate during a pottery residency in Jingdezhen, China, where she learned the prized technique of “blue and white” porcelain. Montgomery mines historical imagery from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance and translates it into personal, contemporary allegories by including political narratives punctuated by feminist perspectives. Attracted to the narrative potential of istoriato decoration – mythological and Biblical scenes adorning Italian Renaissance majolica – she transforms it by imbuing it with her own vision of the world. Re-interpreting her favourite charger plate from 1530 in New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, she incorporates in it witches from the Middle Ages as potent and lasting symbols of contemporary feminism. The witches, associated with evil and conveying a sense of fear, incarnate resistance and intellectual superiority.