Jens Quistgaard “Cordial” & “Palet”, Kronjyden Nissen

Another of the hugely popular designs by Jens Quistgaard for Kronjyden Nissen Denmark c1968 was “Cordial” . This was another of the stoneware series Quistgaard designed – but the matte glaze surfaces of “Contrast” and “Azure” were now replaced with a more versatile and user friendly satin gloss glaze.

The design features an charming embossed repeat pattern of the small connected hearts.

Light grey was the default colour of this design in 1968, but it was made in several other colours later in its production, when it was called the “Palet” Series (see below).

The clay this series was produced from was a black stoneware, compared to the traditional white stoneware of most commercial stoneware dinnerware. This black clay body accentuated the heart design.

In 1984 a range of other colours were introduced to the same design and forms as “Cordial’ and called “Palet”, which was produced until 1988 when Knabstrup closed and production was taken over by Bing & Grondahl ( it is not clear if Quistgaard had any involvement in the addition of other colours to the design, and the renaming of it as “Palet” as opposed to “Cordial”.

There was a range of 6 colour variations in “Palet” included pink, black, white, turquoise, and purple and a soft grey.