JIE Gantofta | Tulpan | White pepper Jar | Bergstrand

The design of these collectible little cuties is called Tulpan (Tulip) is by Ella Bergstrand. This one is for White pepper comes with its original teak lid and orange seal. It has some slight discolouration inside the pot but no cracks or chips.

I'm very fond of it and throughout my china journey have succeeded in collecting several of them. The design is on these spice jars, and larger items like a flour crock, its sister salt pig & a sugar jar. There are listings for all that I've managed to collect, but its slow going because ideally with the tulip design you also want the tulip bulb lid and it's sometimes tricky to get both!

You can see the brush strokes which show they’re hand painted in a method called over glaze painting on faience ( crushed quartz/sand, w. lime) aka. poor man's porcelain. Like most retro decor, a poor man probably couldn't afford them now.

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All these jars were produced by JIE (short for John Ewert ’Jie’ Johnson) at the factory in Gantofta after 1952 (which is when JIE started to produce household goods). Later that same decade, Jie started to print its designs with silk screens because hand painting proved too costly, and by the mid 60s, Jie had moved out of household ceramics altogether. Which means the few they produced are in great demand. These by Ella Bergstrand, and even more so Anita Nylund who produced the series 'our little town.