Collection of 8 Handmade Miniature Dishes & Saucers

A set of eight petite handmade ceramic saucers, gathered by Patricia Wells over many years and long at home at Chanteduc, her farmhouse and cooking school in Vaison-la-Romaine. The pieces vary pleasingly in form: some octagonal, some oval, one with a scalloped rim. The glazes run through the warm ochre, amber, sage and forest green that feel entirely native to Provence — deep and slightly uneven in the way that only hand-thrown work achieves. One dish carries a painted olive branch border; another bears a small decorative motif in the Provençal tradition. When not in use, they lived in the "Marseille cabinet," a superb antique vitrine in Chanteduc's living room, displayed among other pieces that were equally admired and put to work. One of the small rectangular dishes appears on page 194 of *The French Kitchen Cookbook*. Arranged together on a kitchen shelf or sideboard, they make a handsome and coherent group — the palette shifts just enough across the set to keep it interesting. Scatter them across a table at drinks time exactly as Patricia did, or press them into service as soap dishes, where their scale and depth of glaze are perfectly suited.