Calling All Collectors: Meet Miss Priss

Today's post is a departure from our usual fare.  Reader, it's cold outside, down in the negative double digits, so I'm not even going to pretend that I want to go out for photos.  I'm currently wearing three layers and still a little chilly in my home.  So, let's talk about something different today: ceramic collectibles.  

I'm always on the lookout for interesting pieces to put in my home.  Nothing sad, greige or minimalist about my home.  Following in the footsteps of my two favorite design eras-the Victorians and the 1950s/60s, I want color, patterns, prints, textures, colliding into a feast for the eyes.  While designing my home during all these renovations, I often look back to the things I loved in other people's homes when I was a child.

The house I grew up was very much a product of the late 70s.  Everything was olive green or burnt orange and all the walls and ceilings were bare and white for the longest time.  It had a very tiny rectangular kitchen with rows of orange cabinets running parallel down the walls.  On top of these cabinets was just enough space for my mom to showcase all the ceramics she had inherited from family members over the years.  I wasn't allowed to touch anything, under the premise that these were valuable things.  As an adult I have run across many of those same pieces in flea markets and antique stores and I can tell you with all certainty that much of the value was sentimental, but I get it.  

Among the pieces displayed there, I spent a lot of time admiring a set of blue smiling cats.  They were lovely and I wanted more than anything to take them down and play with them.  But, I was not allowed.  Last year while wandering through a flea market, I saw an entire collection of these same blue cats and got a little curious what happened to those proudly displayed pieces which had disappeared years ago from my mom's collection when my parents moved to a new house and mom wanted a new look.

Originally, I believe there was this tray/ salt shaker and a sugar bowl or could have been a grease bowl.  After some digging through boxes and bags at the back of her closet, we managed to locate the two remaining pieces of this collection.

You can probably tell at a glance that these pieces have been well used.  the tray has been broken in half and glued together and both have chips and staining in the cracks, but that really only makes me feel like it's ok to go ahead and use them rather than trying to keep them in pristine condition.

A born researcher, I decided to find out the history of this peculiar little set of dishes.  The general consensus is that this is the Miss Priss set released by Lefton China in the 1950s, but really gaining momentum around 1964 becoming one of Lefton's most popular lines.  No wonder these dishes appeal to me, they're from my favorite style era!  If you'd like a history of the Lefton Co and its founder, click here to read an article by Vintage Virtue.

It's quirky, kitschy, and quite lovely, not to mention just a bit odd when you think of drinking and dining off cat heads; it's kind of perfect for me.  Sadly, I am not currently looking to complete a collection based around just these two pieces, Lord knows I have enough dishes to feed a posh army Sunday tea, but if I were starting out all over again, I would definitely put this set at the top of my list.  And if you're interested, there was another set released at nearly the same time by rival company Enesco, with a winking yellow cat.

Not a cat person? Not to worry, they made a line of pink poodle dishes too!  What happened to the design world that everything is so boring now?  I can't believe people are worried about the resale value of their dishes.

If you're a vintage lover who's bored with everything blocky and beige about modern life and looking for a unique way to spruce up your dining experience, check out vintage Lefton and Enesco. Set your table and bring some color back to your home and to the world.