Hermès (Limoges porcelain)
Coupelle of ‘Marqueterie de pierres d’Orient et d’Occident’
circa 1990s
Simulating a sinuous piecing together of rippling marbles, earthy granites and other semi-precious stoneware, the flora and fauna fanning across the face of this tray seam to one another so as to create a sweet, nectarous bay in which one may happily pool a little collection of bibelots. The romantic relationship between the colours and shapes of the décor casts a kind of ceaseless, swaying shimmer over the tray in its entirety, occasionally teasing one’s sight with an overwhelming (though beautiful) wave of fiery reds or with one too few blinding, starry specks mottling a sea of blue. And what with its airy, ethereal imagery there lingers an additional factor - one that is felt rather than seen - that makes this coupelle all the more lovely as a work of art: it is the sense of the sturdy, firm-footed weight of the porcelain, something that eludes to durability and confidence and something that, in this case, pleasingly counterbalances the floating snail, wooden leaves and bashful, one-eyed green worm with an unwavering hand, keeping safe those who play innocently and naïvely within its sloped confines.
