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66 a few, but many women who were also a part of this story. Some of these women are well-known, having lived their lives in the public eye since birth, including Queen Mary II, who changed the course of British history and many say usurped her father’s crown to become a reigning queen of England, or Alice Claypoole Vanderbilt, otherwise known as Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt II, a fearless self-made leader of New York society who raised the art of opulent living to new zeniths during America’s Gilded Age. In revisiting their stories through the lens of Delftware, I hope they will be viewed with a fresh perspective, revealing new angles, nuances, and truths. Others, although prominent in their time, are now largely forgotten, like Alice Morse Earle, the American historian who wrote sixteen bestselling books, fueling popular interest in collecting and early American history, or Elizabeth Colt, the indefatigable industrialist who not only maintained control of the Colt’s Patent Arms Manufacturing Company through the Civil War and beyond but, as an art collector, was the first woman to have a museum wing named in her honor. By reintroducing these women and situating them within previously unexplored contexts—alongside the equally dynamic women they lived, worked, and collaborated with—I hope to illuminate the breadth of their influence, both individually and collectively, in shaping industries, culture, and historical narratives. Charles Antoine Goutzwiller, La boutique de la Marchande de faïences, (d’après J. Kilian.) from Henry Havard, La Céramique Hollandaise (Amsterdam, 1909). Courtesy of the Getty Research Institute.