Greek Pottery Sail Ship Wall Plate Keramikos Athens Teal Olive Brown For Sale

Greek Pottery Sail Ship Wall Plate Keramikos Athens Teal Olive Brown.

It measures 11.75\" in diameter and it stands 2\" tall at the rim.

There are two holes in the base which allow wire attachment to hang on the wall.

It is artist signed, but I can\'t decipher the initials.

There is a longstanding community outside of Athens which is renown for its pottery. That is where this originates. The name of the area is Keramikos, which must be the etymological root of the English word \"ceramics.\"

It\'s not antique, but I don\'t believe it\'s very new either. Given the color palette, I would place it in the 50s-60s, but that is just a guess. Teal of course was popular in the 90s, too, but this feels older than that.

It is more of a shallow bowl than a plate. I\'ve taken a few pics to illustrate the shape. There is no flat edge, no flattening out of the bottom; it is one continuous concave form. The rim is smooth 360° and there are no cracks or chips. There are, however, some signs of use on the interior, from utensils. I do believe it was used for food service, which would be perfectly fine still, since it is glazed. The wear is minimal and not obvious unless upon close inspection.

There is also crazing, and I\'m a little confused by the crazing - it is stained.  Whether this stained crazing came from use or baking (I don\'t know if I would bake with it) or by design - I don\'t know. Whereas crazing would typically be a detriment, I honestly think it\'s kindof beautiful and adds a lot of character and patina to the plate. This is the type of crazing that modern reproductions try to mimic!

The ship is rudimentary and naive, as the front and back sails (what is that - forward and aft?) are billowing in opposite directions, which is atmospherically impossible lol, so that\'s kinda cute and folky. The teal is not a bright fresh teal, there is a dinginess to it and it almost has an emerald tint. Then there is a beautiful off-green, olive band; and the center ship illustration has various tones of brown with a few highlighting strokes in yellow ochre.

I have never rambled on like this in an item description! (*well, maybe once. It was a Kachina sand painting.)

I just think it\'s fabulous and unique, and deserves a thorough description.