Pandora Dinner Plate, Cobalt Blue

A set of 4 hand-painted dinner plates in cobalt and white from Caldas da Rainha — a single bold bloom at the centre, wrapped in a sweeping fern, the scalloped rim the colour of a Portuguese evening sky.

Blue and white has been the lingua franca of ceramics for seven centuries — from the kilns of Ming China through Delft, through Talavera, through the ateliers of Portugal, where it became something warmer and less formal than its origins suggested.
The bloom at the centre is confident and decorative, and the fern that wraps it moves with the ease of a brushstroke by a master artisan
JJ places this where the table needs grounding. It never fails to do it.