{vegetable casserole dish by Booths, England}

I believe now it’s in my genes.
When I was growing up in Ukraine (one of the fifteen of Soviet Union Republics at that time), beautiful porcelain was not readily available in shops. You had to make some effort to get it. Also because in the 70s and 80s the good ones came from Japan, Germany and Czechoslovakia, it was not in large quantities either. Most of the time these things wouldn’t even make it out to the shops’ display cabinets. They would be sold from the back room. The luck was that my mom had two sisters who lived in Central Asia, one in Turkmenistan and the other in Uzbekistan and with the older sister in Moscow, my mom had a larger area “covered” and a greater chance to buy imported porcelain. It took her some years to collect full dinner sets. I remember, one summer visiting my grandmother in Ashgabat, the capital of Turkmenistan, my mom saw Japanese fruit bowls with the same pattern she had lunch and dinner plates already. I could not understand her happiness and excitement at that time. I also could not understand why my Moscow aunt had to buy another tea cup or mug if she already had hundreds!

{Late Foley Shelley, Royal Stafford, Royal Albert}

I don’t know how this thing works, but one morning I woke up a different person. It is not that I didn’t recognize or appreciate beautiful porcelain before. It is that I had to have it, and so my porcelain collection has started. There are a few of different themes in my collection and I fear it might get wider, to the horror of my husband, who keeps saying that silly thing about not having room for more porcelain.

{cobalt blue demitasse cups collection; Limoges, France and Tirschenreuth, Bavaria}

But I see collecting as a way of learning. It is not that you accumulate only, you get more knowledgeable, you want to read about and find more of a particular porcelain or any object of your collection for that matter.

{vintage Royal Crown Derby}

And so with my collections, I always like to add to the white and gold porcelain for two reasons. First because I already have my mom’s white&gold Japanese and Czechoslovakian made dinner sets and second, you can mix this kind of porcelain basically with any other pattern.

{Limoges, monogrammed antique}

My other favorite is chinoiserie themed porcelain especially with images of people. They always go well together even if made by different makers and from years apart.

{a set of vintage Raynaud/Limoges soup plates and new Raynaud rice bowl}

Here is an interview with very passionate porcelain collector beautifully done by Reggie Darling. If you have any interest in porcelain you will enjoy reading it if you haven’t already.