Some years ago when I still did the "Finds of the week" posts, I had some called "I'm a collector" in which I shared vintage items. Over time my collections have mostly stopped growing due to different reasons, but they are still there and still loved. I also have vintage items, some inherited, some gifts, some from fleamarkets, some more interesting than others.So I thought it could be fun to share some of them every, now and then and tell their story.
Today's post is a huge flashback to my childhood. Family gatherings for birthdays or confirmations, coffee and heavy buttercream cakes, and tableware from the 60s.
Always having been drawn to sets in different colors, I loved those ceramic dishes. Of course back then I didn't think to ask why my parents chose different colors instead of getting just one, now I wish I would have.
The model is called "Arabella", the decor "Boston". According to the Bonnefanten, an art museum in Maastricht, the model was produced from 1960 to 1966, Antoine Corstjens being the creator of the decor and Otmar Lochschmidt of the model.
We had the coffee sets, stackable cups, saucers, and small plates, and there were two of each rich color - red, brown, green, yellow, and blue. One sister and I thought we only had the dark blue, but not the light blue, but my other sister says we had both, and thinking about it again, I have to agree. Over the years, pieces broke, and eventually the ones left became a memory in the cupboard as mugs got popular instead of small coffee cups.
I have always loved the yellow and got a complete set. It still makes me smile looking at it. I love the stripes in the glaze and the yellow looks so happy and fresh.
This is the mark on the cup - the sphinx surrounded by the words "Royal Sphinx Maastricht" and a crown, with "Made in Holland" at the bottom.
The cursive writing underneath the sphinx says "P. Regout" which stands for Petrus Regout, the founder of the manufacture.
I tend to obsess when researching for my nostalgia posts (which is probably the reason there are not more yet), and I ended up on Instagram, in Dutch online shops, museums, collector sites. It would have been easier if I had been able to read everything without using DeepL to help me translate.
Imagine my (unwarranted) surprise when I found that there are other items in this particular decor, soup bowls, egg cups, flower pots, sugar bowls, coffee pots (no idea if we had a coffee pot although it would have made sense), even with the colors reversed, and I really liked the milk cups at the Bonnefanten!
I may already have ordered a soup bowl and a flower pot and inquired about an egg cup ... so if anyone stumbles upon a milk cup, let me know, it doesn't even have to be yellow ;-)
Update: Here are the soup bowl with saucer and the little flower pot now, unfortunately my inquiry about the egg cup has been ignored.
A minute ago, however, I ordered a sugar bowl and milkpot.
Update: They are here, these ones are light blue.
Next goal - milk cup and egg cup :-)
For now all I would need is a buttercream cake which I haven't had in decades, I think!
These are so pretty, Cat! I love happy yellow shade. Yellow doesn’t seem to be used much in dishes now. I do remember my great grandmother’s Fiesta Ware. It had a yellow plate, but it was more gold than yellow. Fun post!
ReplyDeleteThank you, Michelle :-) They are so very 60s, definitely a difference to today's dishes.
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