1970s Mottahedeh Vintage Reproduction Porcelain Partridge or Quail Trinket Box

Description

Title: 1970s Vintage Reproduction Porcelain Partridge or Quail Trinket Box by Mottahedeh.
Manufacturer: Mottahedeh.
Period: 1970s.
Place: Italy.
Description: Offered is a fine 1970s Vintage Reproduction Porcelain partridge or quail trinket box by Mottahedeh, after an historical piece. The original piece was acquired by Mildred and Rafi Mottahedeh for their private collection and then used as a model. The lidded container is beautifully hand decorated, features navy tipped feather over gray, accent feathers and markings in shades of pink highlighted by navy and white, black eyes, over a white ground woven basket sprayed with hints of grass at edges surround. The underside is labeled "A Mottahedeh Design", "ITALY".
Measures: 6.25 W x 4 D x 4.25 H inches.
Weight: 1 pound.
Brief Mottahedeh Bio:
Post WWII, great quantities of porcelain passed through the hands of Mildred and Rafi Mottahedeh as many European families put their collections of porcelain on the market. It was the Chinese export porcelain that they kept, every winnowing out less interesting pieces and adding pieces that reflected their interests: animal figures, religious subjects, and subjects that went back and forth between East Asia and Europe.
By the late fifties, they had begun to make reproductions from their own collections. They scoured Europe, East Asia and South Asia looking for craft traditions still capable of reproducing the porcelain and other accessories from the 18th century. Not surprisingly, Mottahedeh offered the most faithful as well as the most interesting reproductions. By the sixties and early seventies the family firm became one of the most important sources for museum reproductions.
Mildred and Rafi Mottahedeh were learned collectors, manufacturers of faithful reproductions, and dealers who had gained a fingertip feel for their subject from the great variety of antiquities they bought and sold. These separate roles gave them a certain perspective on what they did. They believed that the universal need to eat was transformed by the arts of the table which could make eating enjoyable to the eyes and other senses. They also believed that, by reviving the best of the past through collecting and reproduction, they fostered the dialog between contemporary design and the past. In this last endeavor they were totally successful, as the great respect for both their collections and their reproductions shows.
Building on the best of the past, the legacy of Mottahedeh pieces, such as this fine recumbent ram figurine, assures upcoming generations the possibility of owning finely crafted high-fire porcelains, in beautiful patterns, of historic note and provenance.