Royal Copenhagen Christmas Seal Tables

In our seventh yuletide tablescape tour, the theme for 2014 is Royal Copenhagen Christmas Seal tables.

The spirit of a children’s Christmas is the keynote for the annual display of lavishly decorated Royal Copenhagen Christmas Seal tables. And for the seventh year, Atticmag and I are pleased to join in this special celebration with a virtual tour of the event.

As in the past, a prominent group of Danes are chosen by the legendary porcelain brand to create holiday tables using RC’s iconic porcelain patterns at the porcelain maker’s flagship store in Copenhagen. For 2014, six artists, designers and personalities have shared their yuletide table visions, in partnership with the 110-year-old Danish Christmas Seal Foundation, a children’s welfare charity.

One reason I am always so fascinated by these Christmas tables is generational. As a baby boomer, I came of age in terms of my home at a time when mid-20th century Danish design was at the peak of its influence. Royal Copenhagen china, along with George Jensen flatware, dominated wedding registries. And special Christmas dinnerware sets were the height of luxury, as they still must be today.

Christmas is the season for traditional color. So Danish lifestyle and consumer habits expert Anne Glad, chose a traditional red background and accents with angels floating over her table [top].

Glad’s mother and grandmother collected Christmas seals so her historical knowledge of them goes back beyond her years. Inspired by her favorite 1970 Christmas seal, called “Angel Castle,” she envisioned a 9-foot long midnight blue table as a road to a magical castle.

The new midnight Blue Fluted pattern she used on the table has a similar feel to 70s stoneware. Black and midnight blue — colors of the night sky — are also part of the latest “dark kitchen” trend coming out of Scandinavia so it’s no surprise to see them on tableware as well.

I always enjoy seeing how a graphic artist works in another medium. The designer of this year’s Christmas seal is Jakob Kühnel who used RC’s chic new Black Fluted dish pattern for his animal fantasy table. Each place setting includes a stylized cat and elk roam through the centerpiece. This table must be very dark though it reads as taupe in the photos. Overhead, a serious of white Christmas ornaments hang at different levels.

Clean lines, a monochrome palette and a distinct masculine approach offer a variation on the way a Christmas table goes together.

If you could design a personal snow globe how would that look? What a challenge! And what a fanciful table TV host Signe Lindkvist envisioned. The idea is that visitors can stand under the neon sign at the top of the snow globe and snap a selfie. The sign spells out  a pun in the Danish for “see and snow.”

This table sort of resembles an altar with a winter landscape enclosed in a disco ball. The table shows off at least three different RC patterns. I suspect this is one table that needs to be seen in person to be fully appreciated. But I’d love to get a selfie here. What a hoot.

The first time I ever shopped for my ‘good’ dishes Blue Fluted was a porcelain I considered. Along with Flora Danica, it’s one of the great classic dish patterns. Many of us are lovers of blue and white, a combination that dates back to 18th century. Like me, Danish beauty guru Ole Henriksen grew up with this pattern and chose to use it for his super traditional table.

A dark background and frosty flowers and accessories emphasizes the blue and white theme and evokes a midnight supper, doesn’t it?

With its gilded borders and rich hand painted plant life, Flora Danica china is so regal.

So it’s amusing that TV host Shane Brox chose to use it in an elaborate fantasy table with a story: there is a cookie factory owner with a neurotic wife who makes and sells cookies to pay for his elegant tableware.

The Christmas table is all set up with elaborate stacks of dishes. But this is a ‘high-low’ idea since the table cloth is made of plain brown paper artfully cut with a zig-zag edge.

But a paper airplane piloted by a well loved teddy bear crashes into the middle of the Christmas table and breaks some of the precious china and disturbed all the little gifts. Oh my.

An intimate Christmas dinner, with a modern edge, is the promise of the round table for six created by dancer Thomas Evers Poulsen.

Cut crystal from the 1940s, and a traditional centerpiece graced with pinecones and holly, stand in contrast with the starkly modern Black Fluted Mega dish pattern. And how clever to use oval platters as place plates, which introduces a welcome note of asymmetry. After this dinner there will, of course, be dancing. And the huge wreath hanging behind the table is a stunning reminder of both the solemnity and the celebration of the season.

(Source: Royal Copenhagen)

See the 2013 Royal Copenhagen’s Modern Christmas

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