Falling for Fairyland

Sometimes it’s love at first sight. Other times, it’s a slow burn.

I’m not usually a 20th-century guy. If anything, I have a chip on my shoulder about (blessedly, less and less) trendy modernism, and even art nouveau can feel a little too nouvelle vague, if you know what I mean.

But two years ago, I interviewed my friend (and brilliant founder of the gallery Artistoric) Bailey Tichenor for my podcast. Bailey introduced me to the phenomenon of Fairyland Lustre. It’s a visually spectacular ceramics program invented by Daisy Makeig-Jones, the auteur and icon of women’s professional advancement who gave Wedgwood customers a fantasy escape from the horrors of the Great War. By the early 20s, the halcyon Great Gatsby era, Fairyland was selling up the Wazoo. And Daisy, herself a great storyteller, was baking cheese sandwiches in the printer’s oven and dressing up Wedgwood employees in Portland Vase costumes.

The more I looked at Fairyland, the more I liked it, which I took as a good omen. In due course I found a piece that I wanted to buy — an extremely rare form, with exuberant decoration — a single coffee cup and saucer.

With further help from ex-Christie’s ceramics specialist Carleigh Queenth, I’ve learned that the motif on this cup is called “Nizami” — Daisy’s homage to the great Persian poet of the 12th century, and to the masterpiece 16th-century illuminated manuscripts of Nizami’s work commissioned by the Shah, including such apropos wisdom as:

He who shames not at learning can draw forth pearls from the water, rubies from the rock.

There are dealers who can sell ice to Eskimos, but I’m not one of them. The only reliable sales technique I know is contagious enthusiasm…so I buy what I like, on the theory that I won’t be the only one. If you’re finding yourself enthusiastic about this object and it’s story, please be in touch.