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Herend's Cobra turns a serpent's head into a kaleidoscope, dressed in the Rust Orange fishnet. In 1851 Queen Victoria herself ordered a service from Herend, the legendary Hungarian house. Read its story.
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Herend turns its brush to a serpent here, far from the butterflies and flowers Queen Victoria once ordered. Its fishnet pattern was developed for collectors drawn to bold, maximalist design. Dated to about 1992 by the mark on its base, this Cobra sets a traditional motif in a contemporary light.
At heart the pattern is a play of colour. Concentric rings spread across the head in coral orange, bright blue, golden yellow and deep forest green. Each scale is painted by hand, so one hue flows into the next without a seam.
Oversized and finely sculpted, the head holds a watchful poise, its gaze set with piercing green eyes. A lustrous glaze seals every painted ring. As the light moves across it, the rings glow like jewels.
Herend was born of patience. In 1826, in the quiet Hungarian town of Herend, 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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