Herend Poisson Gravy Boat with Underplate, Rare Blue-Gray Red and Gold Colorway

Herend secured its place among Europe's great porcelain houses in 1851, when Queen Victoria ordered a service after admiring its work at London's Great Exhibition. That same devotion to hand-painted artistry shows in this pair of gravy boats with matching underplates, decorated in the Poisson pattern, Herend's playful take on the fish of Chinese porcelain. Rather than the familiar bright polychrome, these are painted in a rare scheme of red and gold with black outlines on a blue-gray ground, a sophisticated palette that looks equally at home with fine silver or modern table settings. Made at Herend in [1941], as war closed in around Hungary, and later passed down through the estate of U.S. Ambassador James C. H. Bonbright, who was serving as an American diplomat in Budapest in those very years and whose diplomatic career spanned Budapest, Lisbon, and Stockholm, they are striking pieces with a remarkable backstory.

Dimensions: 9.5" L x 4" W x 4" H (gravy boat) 10" L x 7.5" W (plate)