Search
Pastel tulips bloom by hand across Herend's Kitty, the colors varying across the set. Queen Victoria made her own purchase from the legendary Hungarian house at the Great Exhibition of 1851. Read its story.
“The perfect transaction and I love the dishes.”
“Excellent service. First class shipping and wrapping. Outstanding experience in every way, complete with a handwritten thank you note!”
“Attention to high end details befitting such a purchase: toile print tissue, lovely stationery with a personal note and even a wax seal! I will make it a point to visit the ClassyTea store.”
In London her choice was a design of butterflies and flowers, a meadow set on porcelain. Kitty keeps to the garden too, though its blooms grow closer to home. The story goes that a Herend painter named Gustave drew them from the spring tulips of the Bakony region around the manufactory.
Kitty reads like a spring bouquet, gathered from one garden. White and orange tulips join yellow, blue and pink-purple blooms with botanical care. Each one is painted by hand, with subtle shading on the petals and leaves of a natural green.
Sprigs in matching pastels accent the rim, and a basketweave border embossed into the porcelain adds its own texture. Scalloped edges ripple outward, and the gold edge glints along every curve.
Herend was born of patience. In 1826, in a quiet Hungarian town a short journey from Budapest, Vince Stingl opened a modest earthenware workshop with a craft he had learned in Vienna. Little by little, that workshop mastered porcelain, and with it a beauty fine enough to stop a queen.
And stop a queen it did. At London's Great Exhibition of 1851, Queen Victoria herself chose the house's gold medal-winning design for Windsor Castle, and Mor Fischer named it Victoria in her honor. Europe's great families followed. Herend named designs for the Esterházy, Batthyány, Rothschild and Apponyi houses who first bought them. Emperor Francis Joseph raised Fischer to the nobility in 1867, and the now legendary house became purveyor to the Habsburg dynasty.
That royal favor never left the house. By its own account, Herend is now the largest porcelain manufactory in the world. Yet its painters and gilders still finish their work by hand, for a house that belongs largely to the artisans who keep it. Its porcelain now graces homes in every corner of the world, prized most by collectors with a discerning eye. They know each piece carries the same craft that once won a queen's favor.
Authenticity guaranteed, white-glove customer care, and available gift wrapping — just as you deserve.
Enjoy free shipping on all orders in the continental US — carefully packed, beautifully delivered.
Trusted by collectors for over a decade. If it’s not perfect, we’ll make it right.
1140 3rd Street, N.E. Washington, DC 20002