Friday 11 March 2016

For Every Day or Special Occasions?

It was this post on Monica's blog which gave me the idea for today's post: I'll show you some of the china in my family, and tell you a bit of its history.

Ludwigsburg used to have a porcelain manufactury from 1758 (as by decree of Wuerttemberg's Duke Carl Eugen) until the end of last year. After ups and downs in its more than 250 year history (during which the manufactury was founded anew in 1948 and sold to a Russian investor in 2009), its insolvency and following closure was officially announced in October 2015.

My Mum loves Ludwigsburg china and has a nice collection, displayed in a glass cabinet in my parents' living room. She has kindly taken these pictures for me and given me some detail as to how the various pieces came to her:


Let's begin with the roses: My Mum received the first one as a gift in the 1960s. Back then, the price for one rose at the manufactury was 25 Deutsche Mark, which would be around 12,50 € today. Meanwhile, the price for one rose has increased more than tenfold - when the manufactury still operated, it was at 140 €, and who knows how the price could develop now that they are not being made anymore. 
Also, the newer ones aren't quite as pretty as the old ones; they are smaller and have less petals. Actually, they are made of leftovers from bigger pieces of china. A nice way of using scraps!
Some years ago, my Mum found two more roses at an antiques fair in Ludwigsburg. It was raining heavily that day, and the traders were glad to sell anything at all. The person offering the roses had no idea of their actual value, and my Mum was able to get two for only 30 € - a real bargain. 

The pieces in the upper picture are traditional Ludwigsburg shapes and patterns. My Mum received them as gifts from her mother, one by one over many years. The coffeepot, milk and sugar dishes were painted according to my Mum's wishes, to match her Meissen china, shown in the next photo:


Can you see which flowers on the cups match the coffeepot, milk and sugar dishes?
The collecting of Meissen pieces started around 50 years ago when my Dad's grandmother in northern Germany started to give away her own collection, cup by cup, as gifts for any occasion such as Christmas, my parents' engagement and wedding, and birthdays, until she died.

Meissen and Ludwigsburg are not the only makers of china represented in my Mum's collection. She also has this pretty set of Herend (Hungarian) porcellain:



The blue-white dishes on the festive table in the above picture are Rosenthal, another fvourite of my Mum's. This particular design is called "Romanze in Blau" ("Blue Romance") and was a wedding gift for my parents in 1965.
When my Mum celebrated her "Golden Confirmation", she offered food and decorated the table all in the style of the 1950s, when she was 14 years old at her first confirmation. 

Now to my own china, which I am using every day:


This ivory or cream coloured set with gold rims was quite the thing in the 1940s and 50s! My grandparents bought it, as you did back then with such important purchases, on installments. They were very proud of it, and it was not taken out for everyday use, just on Sundays and special occasions.
Also only on Sundays, silver cutlery and a proper table cloth were used. The rest of the week, it was a waxed cloth on the table, and cutlery with brownish bone handles. 

When my grandmother (Mum's Mum) died in 2001, the house had to be sold and emptied of its contents - accumulated over a lifetime and from many different people who had lived with the core family over the years; lodgers, in-laws and so on.
The beautiful dishes, simple and elegant, as well as the silver cutlery came to me, along with the 1960s coffee table, 1930s sideboards and 1950s armchair I have in my living room.
Of the dishes, I have only 5 large plates and 6 soup plates left, but a large number of cake/dessert plates, coffee cups and other items. Every day when I eat from these dishes, the meal feels like something special. I know there are many modern and stylish sets of dishes and cutlery around, but I am very happy with my old-fashioned "Grandma"-stuff.

28 comments:

  1. These are all so beautiful, Meike...I love fine china. I am not familiar with most of the lovely things pictured here, but I know Herendi and it is very valuable. I've been to their museum where there is a restaurant where your tea or lunch or dinner is served on their china. I have inherited a lot of dishes from my mother and my grandmother. They are treasures.

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    1. This Herend china I inherited from an aunt. She had a great collection of Meissen, Berlin KPM, Kopenhagen, Ludwigsburg and Herend china, four glass cabinet filled with.
      And I am glad and proud of having those pretty hot chocolate cups / mugs. Her sons gave it to me after she died.

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    2. They are beautiful, aren't they!
      I am not surprised you are familiar with Herend, given your heritage. It is nice to have things passed through the generations.

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    3. Thank you Meike's Mum. I was going to ask what the Herend china items were.

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  2. What lovely china you've shown us. I have a love for china and rotate a number of sets that I have collected or that have come down to me. I remember seeing just such a set of Herend once and wishing I could afford it! I have a sweet Ludwigsburg child's tea set from my childhood that I passed on to my daughter who now uses it with her little daughter - so good to see it used again.

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    1. You have a Ludwigsburg child's tea set? I'd love to see a picture of that! I hope it will stay in your family for many more generations to come.

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  3. Oh, Meike...! All that old china is so beautiful! I'd be looking for excuses to throw parties to show off such gorgeous stuff!

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    1. Jennifer, neither my Mum nor I need excuses to throw parties - we love to entertain, whether it is a proper dinner or just an informal gathering of friends (more likely to be the case at my place, as I don't have a large dining table).
      I like using our "gorgeous stuff", as you call it :-)

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  4. Thanks for the mention, Meike :) and thanks to you and your mum both for showing these. How special to have some locally produced china painted to match nice cups you already had. I like those Meissen cups, I think it's nice when things match without being exactly the same. The names Meissen and Rosenthal are familiar to me in connection with china (although I would never be able to tell what was what from just looking at it, without seeing stamps)... I agree it's nice to have some things with a personal history connected, and also to be able to use them (not just have them put away in a cupboard where you don't see them).

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    1. It would never do to have all these put away where nobody can see them, I agree!
      Like you, I would not be able to tell one manufacturer from the other by just looking at the pieces and not at the stamps. There are a few I recognize, though, such as the typical Ludwigsburg shape and pattern, and some Kopenhagen pieces I guess I'd know, too.

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  5. It's great that you use and enjoy them each day, you are making new memories with them, not just letting them be dust catchers.

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    1. That's true! And I am always careful with them, trying not to lose any more. Years ago, my husband dropped one of the dinner plates, diminuishing their number from 6 to 5... we briefly thought about gluing it back together but decided against it, it would have just cracked again.

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  6. Well I never!
    Isn’t Romanze in Blau from Rosenthal’s Studio Line? I have the Kaffee Service out of the same stable, and the same decade, only mine is the one with a gold basket as decoration. Unfortunately I have forgotten the name but I have several times re-ordered replacements for broken pieces which are still available from Rosenthal itself.

    Even more unfortunately, I never use it. It sits in a glass fronted Schrank, showing off. My dinner set is Thomas, that gets used every time we have guests and even on Sundays for our Sunday lunch.

    I gave my daughter a dinner set from Germany out of my own collection. I think it’s all broken now. If I don’t use my china somebody else will only break stuff which I have kept safe for years.

    How stupid of me.

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    1. Yes, "Romanze" is from Rosenthal. I don't know all the detail as you (and my Mum) do, but I am sure my Mum will read your comment and probably reply, too.
      Maybe now is the time to start using it, Friko :-)

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  7. You might call them old fashioned, I call them gorgeous!
    I love to watch the Antique Road Show from England, they very often will have beautiful china to show us.
    One thing...I remember being at a family gathering at my in-laws, and my mother in law handed a small blue and white saucer to a guest, it was quite old and to my eyes, just perfectly beautiful. To my surprise, he used it as an ASH TRAY for his cigarette! I was astonished. I think it was thrown away afterwards. So, by telling you this, you might understand my love for something pretty, even a dish that no one thinks anything about! :-)

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    1. The sauer/ash tray was thrown away afterwards?! Why wasn't it just washed and used again? Strange!
      I love old-fashioned things, Kay, whether it be dresses or dishes, books or food. I am not as naive as to think everything was better in the "good old days", but certainly not everything has become better by modernizing, either.

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  8. I thoroughly enjoyed seeing your Mum's porcelain china Meike. There is a china cabinet at my Mum's, with my name on it, full of things that have been handed down, like in your family. My son has started buying me a teacup and saucer each Christmas, and I am quite looking forward to starting my own little collection.

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    1. Hello Carol, if I am not mistaken, you are "Carol in Cairns", aren't you? :-)
      Thank you for popping in and leaving a comment!
      Will you use your collection, or are those Christmas gifts and family heirlooms only on display in the china cabinet?

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  9. I love China tea sets and have one or two nice teapots and cups and saucers. Why does tea taste so much better from fine china? But as I get older collecting things seems less appealing, so it all sits in cupboards looking pretty but never used. It's the fear of breakages I suppose, but we should enjoy them while we can.

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    1. You should indeed, Maggie! And of course it would be a shame if anything broke, but to be honest, it would only be something material.

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  10. Nowadays people seem far less bothered about crockery than they used to be but nice, well-designed tableware, like good cutlery tends to enhance mealtimes. In England, most families - even working class families had glass cabinets in which they kept their best china. Regrettably, that habit has almost faded away. Another interesting post Meike.

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    1. I agree; it does make a difference whether one eats out of the cardboard box brought in by the pizza delivery man or from a nice plate. When it comes to a clean table, I am very finnicky and can not enjoy the food properly if a restaurant or other eating place lacks cleanliness.
      Glad you found this one interesting, Neil - everybody else having commented here is female!

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    2. Well I am a transvestite! I was wearing a blonde wig and one of Shirley's floral dresses when I wrote my comment so am I allowed in the club?

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    3. You're Honorary Member, YP! Here's your membership card :-)

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  11. I love china too. When my mother died I could not get rid of some of her china, but I have no space to store it so it sits in the loft. I also have a beautiful tea set that belonged to my great grandmother, but who uses tea sets these days? I think it's lovely that you can use these family heirlooms every day.

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    1. As I don't drink tea unless I feel very cold or ill, I mostly use my coffee mugs for everyday. But the plates are in daily use, and much appreciated and treasured.
      It is nice that you have something still from your great grandmother!

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  12. All my crockery is plain. My concession to 'best' is pure white with a silver rim. I do have some bowls and the like from the manufacturing pottery I used to have. I've never believed in just putting old things in a cupboard and looking at them. My brother has all the 'family crockery' but I have a lot of the glass. It gets used constantly even though some of it is arounf 100 years old. If it gets broken (and very little has and some of the sets are complete) then at least we've had the enjoyment of them in the meantime.

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    1. That is how I feel about these things, Graham. Use them and enjoy them, not just look at them!
      Do you know, I've just realized I can not remember what crockery I had before I inherited the cream-gold service from my Grandma! I moved out from home to my first own place in 1989, and my Grandma only died in 2001. So what plates and cups etc. was I using all those years? I honestly can not remember!

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