What a find: fabulous and extremely rare Shenango "Well of the Sea" plates. Shenango "Well of the Sea" pattern, by designer Richard Koppe, is a stylized rendering of fish, fish hooks and lures. The plates are white with black and gray graphics. This dinnerware pattern was featured at the Hotel Sherman (or Sherman House) in the 1950s The F-13 stamp on the back of each plate indicates they were made between July and December 1955. Artist Richard Koppe (1916-1973) taught at the University of Illinois at Chicago from 1963–1970. Born in in St. Paul, Minnesota, he combined aspects of Cubism and Surrealism in his paintings. Koppe explored line, color, composition and space, producing works that are both playful and intricate. Koppe moved to Chicago in 1937 to study at the New Bauhaus (later the Institute of Design of the Illinois Institute of Technology). In 1950, his work was exhibited at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art in the exhibition "American Painting Today." Shenango China was one of the leading American dinnerware manufacturers from the 1920s until the late 1980s. The company, headquartered in New Castle, Pennsylvania, absorbed many of its competitors. Shenango dinnerware is easily identified using a backstamp featuring Native Americans involved in various forms of pottery production.