Miniature Blue & White Floral Porcelain Ashtray

A dainty little porcelain ashtray in a soft-cornered square shape, small enough to sit in the palm of your hand. Each side has a gently scooped rest notch. The glossy white glaze is hand-decorated on the sides with deep cobalt-blue blossoms, buds and feathery leaves. It's a charming piece of mid-century tabletop nostalgia, and just as handy today as a ring dish, a trinket tray or a tiny planter for a succulent.

That classic blue-on-white look goes back centuries. Chinese potters began producing underglaze-blue porcelain in huge quantities during the Yuan dynasty (1279–1368), driven by demand from Asia and the Islamic world. The cobalt they painted with was easier to control than the copper used for red. Some of the earliest cobalt came from mines in Iran, where it had been used to colour glass and glazes since the second millennium BCE.