Girl With Hat by Elsi Borelius for JIE Gantofta, Sweden

In my opinion, the works of Elsi Borelius (1908-2001) for JIE Gantofta doesn't get all the appreciation they deserve. Some of her more commercially successful works, like the famous Flower Girls, are still highly attractive and popular, even if we can still find a lot of those pieces out there. Borelius diverse, delicate feminine art deserves greater attention. Again, in my opinion. Her work is very exciting. Some of her pieces are gorgeous and bring so much references with them. There is a mix of an anthropological reading with strong dashes of primitivism and a lot of Scandinavian folk ceramic tradition. I love her works, even her latest more commercial pieces. 

This piece "girl with hat" is stunning small piece. Not very easy to find. The face of the girl tells it all. Just perfect. A piece of pottery that inspires me everyday. It is one of my favorite pieces of Elsi Borelius. Such a great piece.  You find it HERE

Arabia Finland FLORA: Flower Sales Power...

Listed these lovely FLORA tea cups in my shop at the end of the day yesterday and moved forward to make some dinner... before I could finish eating my dinner the cups were sold... That was a record. 

Arabia Finland FLORA  is a very attractive series, Esteri Tomula designs in general are highly attractive and tend to fetch a lot of money and sell quite fast and there are buyers out there hunting them all the time. However, I thought that my recently sourced set of tea cups were not the most attractive cups out there because, even if the cups per se were in fabulous condition, the saucers were ruined... completely wasted and destroyed from too much washing and scratching... guess their previous owner used the saucers more than the cups... The saucers are in such a bad condition that I decided to list the cups without the saucers because they are not worth the cost of shipping...

So, off they go... what are the odds? these lovely saucer-less cups are going back to Finland, they found a new home in their home country... 

A happy ending story. Love those.

It is not possible to see from this angle but the saucer in the picture is in terrible shape... the glaze is completely scratched and gone, puff, destroyed... such a pity. Heavy dish washer use and cutlery marks. 

JIE Gantofta Sweden - Ewa Jarenskog's Couple of Gossipers...

"What are you saying? NO! Really?" 
 Wonder what these two are gossiping about? Me too.

This small ceramic figurine designed by Ewa Jarenskog has a couple dressed in black gowns chatting, or as I like to say, gossiping. It is really beautiful and their black gowns adds some mystery to the piece. It will look fabulous in a corner on any small shelf. 

Ewa Jarenskog created several pieces for JIE Gantofta, several of them showing couple in romantic embraces, but this one is not very romantic, is it? More like a couple of friends gossiping, right? That is what it looks to me.  You will find this lovely little ceramic sculpture here

Rörstrand FORMA Series Eternal Beauty

Good design is eternal and Rörstrand of Sweden has several timeless designs. In my opinion, Rörstränd series FORMA is definitely one of them. The series designed by Olle Alberius in the 1960's is beautiful with clean minimalist lines in off-white shade of stoneware decorated with delicate texture which look like fish scales and has strong geometrical accents. The creamer is decorated with a simple horizontal brown line and the teapot brown lid makes a bolder accent. 

When I found those I had three pieces to choose from: two teapot and a creamer. After careful observation I decided to take only two and the largest teapot had a small damage (chip) on the lid. It is so heartbreaking to leave such a unique piece behind but I left the larger teapot behind. I am glad I got to keep these two pieces and list them in our shop. 

These two are in very good vintage condition without any stains on the inside. No chips, no cracks and no hairlines.  The creamer can hold circa 150ml and is 8cm high, bottom diameter of 6,5cm. Weight unpackaged is 170g. The small teapot (there is a larger teapot in this series) weights 555g and is 10 high with a bottom diameter of 11cm. 

These pieces are available at our Etsy shop and you can go check them by clicking the links to: Creamer and teapot

Mexico Series by Bing og Grøndahl - Dinner Set

Beautiful MEXICO series designed by Jens Harald Quistgaard (1919-2008) for Bing and Grøndahl in the 1980´s. The pictures show part of the pieces we recently listed in our shop. These are the dinner serving items and we also have a large set of dinner plates. 

MEXICO was designed by Quistgaard in a grayish shade of beige with beautiful irregular brown and blue decorations on the edges. No two pieces are identical and that is what makes this series special. Bottom marked with Bing & Grøndahl logo and pattern number 311.

Oslo Design Fair Spring Summer 2018

   

Some pictures I took during my visit of Oslo Design Fair last month. The 2018 Spring Summer collection shown there was filled with beautiful colorful pieces and I simply loved a lot of what I saw. Loads of brass items and other yellow painted metals as statement pieces. Lots of bold and warming colors like old pink, browns, yellows, old blues and greens, dark glass lights and many, many shades of grey. All these pictures, no matter how bad some of them may look, has at least one little detail that I loved or liked... 

So many of the pieces in exhibition were clearly inspired by mid century modern vintage design and will be filling up the shelves of shops near your soon... I still recommend you buy the original design for a fraction of the price of the new ones but with double originality...

Enjoy the pictures.