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Pink and yellow roses climb the branch handle of this Rothschild Bird covered dish. In 1826, Vince Stingl founded the forerunner of Herend, the iconic Hungarian house. Read its story.
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Born in Sopron, Stingl had learned the craft of fine ceramics in Vienna. The manufactory that grew from his start became, by one account, purveyor to the Habsburg dynasty and to aristocratic customers across Europe. On this dish, Herend's painters set bird couples on the lid and again inside the bowl, so the garden continues beneath the cover.
Vienna is also the setting of the legend this pattern paints. Baroness Rothschild is said to have misplaced her necklace outdoors there, and birds were found playing with the strand in a tree some days on. Painted pearls still drape across its branches, among songbirds of different species in gentle pastels.
The green branch handle twists in full dimension, standing proud of the lid, and a woven basketweave texture is molded into the porcelain beneath the painting. Shallow and round, the dish is generous for vegetables at an Easter table and handsome as a lidded piece on an open shelf.
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.
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