Villa Zonheuvel Blog
Whenever we come along something unusual, we can 't resist to dig into it. That recently happened when we designed a dinner table decoration which should make you feel back into the original Palm Beach regency period. Without wanting to bore you with all the details of our search, we would like to tell you more about the table art of the 80s and especially about Doris De Bois. Doris “Dodie” DuBois Thayer Hawthorn, the daughter of pioneers John and Bessie DuBois, who designed status-symbol Lettuce Ware pottery starting in the mid-1960s. Better known as Dodie Thayer, her pottery, which started as a hobby, was a hit with the likes of Frank and Barbara Sinatra, Jacqueline Kennedy, C.Z. Guest and Palm Beach elites. Queen Elizabeth II even ate lunch on a set of specially ordered Lettuce Ware when she visited a Kentucky horse farm in 1986, according to The Palm Beach Post archives. The unique wares, which she created through the mid-1980s, resembled the real thing: lettuce — or, more accurately, cabbage — with stark white veins and bright green flesh. Thayer was born July 29, 1926 to John and Bessie DuBois. She grew up in the historical DuBois family home with her three siblings and parents. In 1960s-era Palm Beach, the mark of a real woman of stature was an elaborate dining-room table set with lettuce- and cabbage-shaped plates, cups, and tureens handcrafted by local potter Dodie Thayer. Brooke Astor, Bunny Mellon, Jackie Kennedy Onassis, and C.Z. Guest waited weeks to buy her goods, each one molded from real pieces of lettuce and sold exclusively at Harriet Healy’s Palm Beach gourmet food and kitchenware store Au Bon Gout. For years these dishes were hidden in the country homes of the elite and reserved for high-society luncheons. She never wanted to sell her pieces to a mass market and only cooperated with one other company during her life. Fashion designer Tory Burch called her in 2013 to launch the Dodie Thayer for Tory Burch collection which comes in either green or white and is quite affordable compared to how much Thayer’s originals can fetch in auction. Though her clientele included the rich and famous, Dodie herself tended to prefer the quieter and private aspects of life. This included spending time with her family. She died July 19 2018 after a “brief illness” at the respectable age of 91. With the weather warming up even in Europe, we now can express our love of the Palm Beach lifestyle and honor this grande dame of lettuce ware. Although we are collectors ourselves and love to decorate our supper club table with lettuce ware, we regularly offer pieces for sale. Be invited to share our love for vegetable - in this case lettuce - pottery from Italy, Portugal, Germany, France, UK or even the US and get infected by the Lettuce-Collectors-Gene.
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AuthorVilla Zonheuvel Archives
February 2020
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