Portmeirion Pottery Moss Agate Pin Dish, MA4
Portmeirion

Portmeirion Pin Dish in the Moss Agate design.

A truly fabulous condition rare piece of early Portmeirion pottery.

The pin dish carries the blue Portmeirion Ware backstamp.

Pieces of Portmeirion in this gorgeous design are very rarely available to purchase.

Approx Dimensions:-

4.25 in (11 cm) diam 

Moss Agate

Shortly after the creation of 'Malachite', Susan Williams-Ellis's ground-breaking, hand painted design of the semi-precious gemstone of the same name, she conjured up an astonishing design based on another gemstone called 'Moss Agate', and this is what she called her design.  Susan researched her idea using old books on geology which had some images of actual agate samples. When the stone is forming, impurities work their way into the material, naturally causing imperfections and marks; some resembling leaf, plant and tree-like patterns and sometimes ferns and firework displays. Some of these stones were, and are still, highly prized and are cut into cameos and cabuchons for the jewellery trade. These natural and unusual forms fascinated Susan and she began designing a pattern based on what she had seen. She drew a background pattern consisting of noughts, crosses and dots which then had individual illustrations of cameos of agate scattered over it. This pattern was then engraved onto a copper sheet, from which a delicately inked transfer was produced. This transfer was placed onto the item to be decorated, mainly straight sided items as the pattern worked best on these. Rich, 22 carat gold liquid lustre, 'best gold', was applied to the cameos. During her trials, Susan noticed that the part of the transfer that remained under the gold lustre, partially resisted the gold and peeked through once it was fired and burnished, giving a ghostly but three dimensional appearance. The little cameos took on a whole new appearance, looking more like real cameos than Susan had ever hoped for. In fact, Susan had invented a new technique all together! Despite the excitement of this new design, the process was long, difficult and incredibly expensive, and remains the most costly and rare of all Susan's designs. Few items were made and mostly were done as gifts for family and friends, as full production was financially out of the question. Most of the items made were on Gray's standard shapes such as lidded jars, tapered mugs, apothecary jars, goblets and a few coffee sets made on a bone china body by Tuscan. Richly gilded and highly decorative, these rare and unusual pieces are normally found in excellent condition, having been kept in cabinets all of their lives. Finding a piece these days is like finding the 'Holy Grail'!