Set of Six Limoges Porcelain Plates Hand-Painted with Cherries - 6¼"

"I have about 99 cherry recipes," Patricia recalls — and these six small Limoges porcelain plates continue that passion.

Found at a brocante, this set of six plates in fine French porcelain is part of what Patricia describes as one of her favourite collections. Each plate is hand-painted with cherries — clusters on stems with soft green leaves, a single fruit tumbling loose — and no two are identical. The white ground is luminous, the rim traced in a fine line of terracotta red that ties the set together without making it uniform. The painting is delicate and naturalistic: the cherries glow in warm shades of coral and deep red.

Cherries run deep in Patricia's life. She grew up in Milwaukee in a house her parents bought in 1946 — the year she was born — that came with two enormous cherry trees. She and her siblings made a tent beneath them. When she and Walter moved to Chanteduc, their farmhouse in Vaison-la-Romaine, there were seven cherry trees. Patricia learned from their mason, that cherries should always be picked with their stems intact. She learned, too, the particular pressure of fruit: unlike vegetables, cherries wait for no one — when they ripen, you harvest immediately, or feel the guilt of every cherry left on the branch. The trees at Chanteduc have since died, one by one, replaced now by olive trees. These plates are a vivid, lasting record of that chapter.

Use them for cheese, fruit, petits fours or a single perfect tart. Displayed on a dresser or propped along a shelf, the six together — each slightly different — are a small, considered pleasure.