Human Flower Project
Denver, Colorado USA
Hollywood, California USA
Ho Chi Minh City, VIETNAM
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Eating Off Flora Danica
Royal botanical porcelain would make a nice gift—for somebody else. (Just don’t put it through the dishwasher.)
Scarlet pimpernel (Anagallis Arvensis) teacup
Flora Danica porcelain
Photo: Flora Danica Online
The best gifts are free or longed for – that’s our view, anyway – so please to take us off your to-do list this season.
In the “longed for” category, along with the Arabian horse we craved from ages 8 to 11, we now include eight place settings of Flora Danica porcelain. Better to want than to have.
The first Flora Danica china was to be a gift from Christian VII, King of Denmark, to Empress Catherine of Russia (“the Great” describing, among other attributes, her appetite for porcelain). If only Catherine had known this gift was in the works, she might have hung on a few more years, but in fact she died before the set had been completed.