Tablescape: Fishing with Chocolate and Jade

10/12/2011

Tablescape: Fishing with Chocolate and Jade

This tablescape started when I ordered some French Yves Delorme linens online in the color jade. European companies name their colorways in their language which when translated sometimes misses the mark with the visual color. I thought it best to go by the colors in the factory photo from YD. The photo showed the color a bright turquoise which is what I wanted. I was so disappointed when they came and were not turquoise. I consider the color jade to have some green in it. I would call them a soft blue/gray.

I started looking through my china to see if the napkins would go with anything I had before deciding to send them back. I do love the quality of the damask of YD products. I thought they went pretty well with this set of antique Limoges fish plates.

I am using these as the first presentation plate for appetizers. The plates were made in Limoges, France by maker E. Alluaud & Co. and are hand painted with an underwater scene. I have not been able to find out anything about this company but there were hundreds of small makers before the turn of the century around the city of Limoges. I bought them maybe 6/7 years ago because I liked the colors which had some lilac and they were in outstanding condition.

I already had the napkin rings by Kim Seibert. I think they are very quirky looking but go with my Tortoise pieces.

I am using the charger as a dinner plate. I do this quite often when I am using placemats as I like larger dinner plates. If you have been following me, you know I am nuts for French maker Jaune de Chrome's china. This pattern is their Tortoise Encrusted which means it has extra wide patterned bands of gold. Tortoise is also sold with a thin band, but I decided if I was going to buy them I might as well go hog wild. I still remember the day I was in a china shop and saw the pattern for the first time. It just pulled me across the room. I had never seen anything like that glaze before [when turned in the light you see hints of lilac] and had never heard of Jaune de Chrome nor would I EVER have considered brown china. [Emphasis on EVER not over stated, ha ha.] This dislike of brown goes with my story of Mr. Swede's brown couch which he is apparently deeply attached to [but needs to take a roadtrip to the dump]. 20 year standing commentary in our house about the brown couch. So you can imagine Mr. Swede's shock when these plates were delivered. [Smile] I think I bought these Tortoise plates around 2007, and I must confess, I have purchased other brown charger patterns of Jaune de Chrome since. So I probably shouldn't give Mr. Swede such a hard time.

For salad, I am using Tortoise rim soups. I only have two pieces of this pattern, the charger and rim soups, for 18 people because I don't like full services of china in the same pattern. I only bought a full service once and that was at a rich newlywed gal's divorce sale -- it is Haviland's white/gold Arizona pattern which I have shown a few times. I like to mix patterns of antique, vintage and new too much to stick to one pattern.

I find blues not easy to work with as there are so many shades of blue so I went with chocolate. I like how the brown in the fish is pulled out by the brown in the chargers. Placemats, embroidered chocolate on chocolate, are Dillards Noble Excellence brand. I like Vietri's flatware in Tortoise also with the brown setting.

The leopard print tumblers by Slant are also from Dillard's. The vintage blue short tumblers are made by St. Clair from 1967 in the Holly Band pattern. They are the closest blue to the napkins that I have and they are a bit bright.

Dessert plates are from Italian maker Richard Ginori in the Mandova pattern. I am back to fishing again with the central motif on the plate of a young guy with his fishing pole. The chocolate charger pulls out the brown of his hat, pants and the land around the water.