Italian Ceramics with a Floral Theme - Tre Fiori Dinnerware and Serveware
Floral Designs have been a subject for artwork such as paintings and textiles for thousands of years. They are beautiful, people are inspired by their beauty and when you see them you just feel good.
Tre Fiori hand-painted design
I love Italian ceramics and during my travels to Italy I have visited many ceramic museums. I find the museums interesting. They display a range of wares from the very elaborate designs of the elite and wealthy to simple everyday bowls and plates that varied over time periods throughout Italian history. There are so many interesting tableware motifs and, of course, many of those Italian ceramic tableware pieces incorporate a decorative floral design. The floral botanical theme just seems to endure the test of time.
Tre Fiori Serveware Set
MERCATO’s hand-painted Italian tableware was inspired by many design elements and tableware motifs from the past. Our floral design of tableware is called Tre Fiori which means “three flowers” in Italian. We were inspired by a 15th century floral design and used those design elements to create hand-painted ceramic serving bowls, a platter and dinnerware set.
The large serving bowl is the complete design and how the antique version of this floral motif looked. The “three flowers” being the center and focal design of the bowl.
Large Serving Bowl
For the small serving bowl, we simplified the design, keeping the main design element of the flowers in the center of the bowl.
Small Serving Bowl
The border of the large serving bowl has a beautiful border pattern and we used this for the round serving platter. By the way, every piece in this tableware collection is handthrown on a potters wheel. A round serving platter is a nice shape and it is the only shape of a platter if it is handmade like this.
Tre Fiori Serving Platter
We also have a 4 piece dinnerware set in the Tre Fiori Pattern. The setting includes a dinner plate, salad plate, pasta/soup bowl and a cup.
Tre Fiori hand-painted dinnerware set
As I mentioned, this pattern is from the 15th century. That’s around the time Christopher Columbus discovered America. I often reflect about things like who came up with this floral design and what was their life like? Would they have ever imagined that this floral design would prevail and re-emerge on a table in that far away newly discovered land in the future? I’m sure they didn’t, but I’m fairly certain that they would be delighted.
