The Ílhavo porcelain manufacturer is marking its bi-centenary in 2024. A celebration that pays tribute to both a piece of the country’s history and to an ongoing, vibrant manufacturing heritage.
It’s not often that a collection of stamps is used to narrate the story of a manufacturer. Yet, as we all know, the exceptions are often the vehicles for the most intriguing stories. Take Vista Alegre, the long-established Portuguese porcelain brand. Set up in Ílhavo, in northern Portugal’s Aveiro region, the company is celebrating 200 years of continuous production in the field of porcelain. A most unusual industrial milestone, which the Portuguese post office has decided to commemorate with a collection of six original stamps.
The images that illustrate its history are remarkable for their diversity. The first stamp features a portrait of the painter João Maria Fabre, a forerunner of the Vista Alegre school, with the entrance to the historic factory next to it, unchanged over the years. The next features the Nervi table lamp, designed by Ross Lovegrove, an organicist triumph of sensual structural tension. The rest of the stamps demonstrate the company’s taste for decoration, as exemplified by the luxuriant naturalistic patterns on the Péonia plates from the Floris collection, and the craftsmanship of Carlos Calisto’s statue of pink flamingos, very light on its slender porcelain legs.
