Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Red Wing Town & Country: Bohemians Among Us

MARTHA STEWART introduced us to Town and Country. Pictured among the Zeisel dinnerware in the "Collecting" column of her June 1996 issue were colorful organically-shaped dishes called Town and Country. Designed in 1946 for Red Wing Pottery of Minnesota, and inspired by that era's bohemian Greenwich Village scene, this line is famously assymetrical, humorously irreverent, and today, prohibitively rare and expensive.

Town and Country creamer, sugar, and teapot
We found our teapot in Galena, Illinois during one of our frequent long drives through the Midwest countryside. It was priced at an astronomical $200. We just couldn't afford it at the time, so we left it behind regretfully. But we never forgot it, and every time we were in the neighborhood, we would check to see if it was still there. After two years of admiring from afar, we finally bought the teapot before moving to San Francisco (fearing that we would never find Town and Country in California). We also pledged that hot water will never ever touch it. This teapot was too precious!

Left: seven comma bowls around a mustard jar; Right: seven coasters or spoon rests 
One reason for the appeal of this line are the colors of the pieces—dusk blue, forest green, chartreuse, sand, peach, rust, metallic bronze, and gray. They look great mixed together and each person around the table can have their favorite shade. The most famous pieces are the salt and pepper shakers (nicknamed "schmoos") with their expressive faces and fat little bodies. Similarly, the oil and vinegar cruets with their ceramic stoppers are beautiful to the eye and feel great in the hand.

Left: oil and vinegar cruets with ceramic and cork stoppers;  Right: salt and pepper shakers
Ironically, the rarest color in this line is white. The most elusive pieces are the lidded soup tureen, soup ladle, and left- and right-handed salad servers. We were fortunate enough to find these pieces quite early on before eBay. We have never seen any of these pieces in this color again in the sixteen years that we have been collecting.

Left: white soup tureen with lid;  Right: wood-handled salad servers in white
When we first read the Martha Stewart article, we were shocked that some of the collectors actually used (gasp!) their pieces. One of them even let their 4-year-old play with (read "break") the stuff . How awful, we thought. But, as the years have gone by, we found that Town and Country served our every day needs. We sip our first coffee from a Town and Country mug. We use the comma bowls for snacks, the cereal bowls for ice cream, and the deep vegetable bowls for pasta. Almost every piece has found its daily use. The teapot, however, still has yet to see hot water.

Our dish cupboard