Herend Poisson Fish Plate, Rare Blue-Gray with Red and Gold Colorway, Hand-Painted Hungarian Porcelain

When Chinese porcelain captivated the courts of Europe, the painters of Herend, the Hungarian manufactory founded in 1826, answered with their own vivid interpretations, and few are as charming as Poisson. Inspired by the fish that swim across Ming and Qing porcelain, long a symbol of abundance in Chinese art, the pattern is usually seen in bright polychrome. This plate presents it in a rare colorway: crisp black outlines, rich red, and gleaming gilt against a cool blue-gray ground. Every detail is painted by hand, giving each plate its own subtle character. 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, this a striking piece with a remarkable backstory.

Dimensions: 10" Dia