These porcelain are part of an elaborate set of state china designed for President Rutherford Hayes. Guided by watercolor images of American flora and fauna by artist-adventurer Theodore Davis, French artisans decorated individual pieces by hand. Davis developed novel shapes for many of the plates in the set, and production methods used by Haviland were technologically advanced. Davis' choice of native birds, animals, and plants representing habitats across the United States symbolically united the recently war-torn nation on the President's dinner table. The Hayes china remains unique among the American presidential state dinner service. Canvas-back ducks, which fed on wild celery in the Chesapeake Bay, were such a popular Victorian delicacy that they are considerably fewer in number today. Davis depicted cranberries in the foreground not only to add a touch of color but also to locate the scene on the Maryland shore.