Elie Bleu Fire Horse Hand Painted Limoges Porcelain Ashtray

Elie Bleu Fire Horse Handpainted Limoges Porcelain Ashtray

Among the objects in the Fire Horse collection — the marquetry humidors, the leather table lighter, the lacquer accessories — the Limoges porcelain ashtray occupies a different register. It is the object made in the most artisanal tradition, by methods that cannot be accelerated, in an edition that does not exceed 88 pieces. Limoges porcelain is France's finest: the clay from the Limousin region, the firing temperatures that produce translucency, the surface that takes decoration with the precision that no other ceramic material matches. The Fire Horse is handpainted on that surface — not printed, not transferred — by the hands of a craftsman for whom this is not a step in a process but the work itself.

Limoges Porcelain / Handpainted

Limoges is not a brand. It is a designation: porcelain made from the kaolin deposits around the city of Limoges, which produce the specific translucency and whiteness that European decorators have valued since the eighteenth century. In the Fire Horse ashtray, that surface carries a handpainted rendering of the Bing Wu — the Fire Horse of the Chinese sexagenary cycle — in a palette calibrated to carry the warmth and dynamism of the fire element. Gold details accent the image, adding depth and connecting the ashtray visually to the rest of the Fire Horse collection: the gold metallic details in the marquetry, the gold accents in the leather and lacquer pieces.

Two Cigar Rests / Alcantara Base

The ashtray is configured for two cigars. The rests are proportioned for the range of ring gauges a serious collection contains — neither too narrow nor too wide, correct for the objects they hold. Four Alcantara pads on the base protect the table beneath without adding bulk or interrupting the line of the piece. An ashtray at this level is not hidden away — it is placed where it will be seen, where the collection of which it is the capstone can be understood as a whole.

Now available at The Tobacconist of Greenwich.