Haviland & Parlon - AW26 Symphonia collection
Symphonia sets the table for a quiet kind of splendour - porcelain warmed by hand, gold catching the last of the afternoon light, garlands of roses composed like a melody around the rim. Every service is an invitation to linger, to pour again, to let the evening compose itself.
In the ateliers of Ch. Field Haviland, in Limoges, sometime in the closing decades of the 19th century, a decorative painter opens a book of Louis XV tapestries. In its pages he finds the motifs of a time that loves porcelain as much as music. From his hand a composition is born: fine arabesques entwine among garlands of miniature flowers, each motif orchestrated around a common centre. A pattern comes into being.
It would take until the 1970s for it to be heard again. The manufacture of Robert Haviland & C.Parlon - founded by Robert Haviland, grandson of Charles Field Haviland, who inherited his grandfather's marks in 1941 - brings the pattern back into production. It is placed within a newly imagined series: Mozart, in which each design bears the name of one of the master's works.
Every motif, a measure. Every service, a variation. Symphonia - after the symphony that Mozart raised to its heights - is one of the most delicate.
Then, like every score, Symphonia falls silent. The pattern goes to sleep in the maison's archives - kept in memory by a few collectors who remained faithful.
In 2026, Symphonia awakens. The maison - since 2021 in the hands of two sisters, Marie-Amélie and Marie-Caroline Guillot - reopens the register where the pattern had been set down. Over a century after the first draughtsmen, it is Marie-Caroline's hand that retraces every motif, every garland recomposed flower by flower, every thread laid down as they were laid at the beginning. Nothing has been changed. The score is the same - time was simply allowed to let it rest.
What you can now hold in your hands is not a new collection. It is a voice beginning again to sing in the porcelain of Limoges.
A symphony begins again.
A celebration of grace.
Symphonia sets the table for a quiet kind of splendour - porcelain warmed by hand, gold catching the last of the afternoon light, garlands of roses composed like a melody around the rim. Every service is an invitation to linger, to pour again, to let the evening compose itself.
The language of detail.
As the masters of old, each motif is drawn by hand and then reproduced through chromolithography. The precious print is laid upon the porcelain by our craftsmen called décorateurs-décalqueurs. Finally, the gold bands are drawn freehand with a fine brush. Garlands of fine flowers, sweeping scrolls, matte gold laid down with the patience of a craftsman after several firings in our Limoges manufacture - every detail unfolds slowly, like a note held a moment longer than expected.
The art of entertaining.
Symphonia is made for the table at its most generous - anniversaries, Sunday lunches that drift into evening, the toast no one wants to end. Pieces meant to be admired by candlelight, passed hand to hand, and one day handed down.
Everyday beauty.
True elegance is not the rare occasion - it is the ritual that makes an ordinary hour beautiful.
The first coffee, still warm.
An afternoon tea, slowly poured.
A conversation that lingers.
Set the table, and let the day become an occasion.
Crafted in Limoges.
Since 1924, Robert Haviland & C. Parlon has carried forward the finest traditions of Limoges porcelain. With Symphonia, the maison brings back to life one of the archive decors of Ch. Field Haviland - a heritage motif faithfully reissued for a new generation.
