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Bird in the Hand

How’s this for a quintessentially autumnal addition to a Thanksgiving spread: the glass pheasant gravy boat by Godinger, complete with a silver-plated feather serving ladle ($40; godinger.com).

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Top to bottom:

Eat Your Greens

Naturalistic designs by the late-nineteenth-century Portuguese ceramist Raphael Bordallo Pinheiro remain in production today, including his take on a gravy boat in the form of a cabbage leaf ($28; us.bordallopinheiro.com).

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Shine Right

A streamlined gravy boat in durable, sturdy Italian pewter, like this one from Match, is always at home on a holiday table, whether yours leans modern or traditional ($215; match1995.com).

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Grecian Beauty

The Aegean sauce boat by L’Objet is like something dreamed  up by Homer. In stark white porcelain, it’s equal parts nautical and neoclassical—a gracefully proportioned ship ($132; l-objet.com).

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Fine Form

The porcelain gravy boat and saucer, complete with matching spoon, from Richard Ginori’s Oriente Italiano collection brings high fashion to the table with its vivid colors and chinoiserie-inspired motifs  ($430; artemest.com).

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Mellow Yellow

Russel Wright debuted his American Modern line of gracefully architectural tableware in 1939. Of all ten colors Bauer Pottery offers today, the chartreuse still feels perfectly in vogue ($92; bauerpottery.com).

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Dotted Lines

A twenty-two-karat-gold handle and a contemporary, hand-painted pattern render this porcelain stunner by R. Haviland & C. Parlon as much a work of art as a functional vessel ($810; mottahedeh.com).