Smart Santas know that antique Majolica offers a massive dose of beauty that few non-living things can match !  The creativity expressed in the endless variation in this type of pottery humbles me. Think backwards from the firing to the glazing, to the pouring of the clay into the hand-carved moulds…. to the original vision of the artist carving the mould….. then the knowledge of glazes and what they become once fired…. then go back  a hundred years….. to today ! These pieces have survived because they were appreciated for generations. Loved, actually. We just received a large quantity of unique beauties , waiting for Santa to scoop them up. Almost all are priced at under $100.00 , with dozens under $50.00 each. All are antique.

The Begonia leaves, shown below, are amongst my favourites. I have collected a few dozen of them, and they are all different. Begonias were a mania in Victorian times, and show up in many old fabrics, prints and ceramics.  These were called ‘pickle dishes’ and were made in the Eastern U.S. and also in England, around 1870.  Ours are priced from $50.00 to $95.00 each.