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Hand-Painted Fruit Bowl — 11″ Low Coupe Serving Bowl, Mid-Century Brushstroke Ware

$38.00 Only one available

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Mid-Century (1940s–1960s) Enamel / Painted, Porcelain / Ceramic Excellent
HDRK-VR-0055
This is the bowl that earns its keep on a table. Eleven inches across and just over two deep, with sloping sides and no fussy rim — the kind of low, open shape that holds a mound of fruit, a summer salad, or nothing at all and still looks like it belongs. The fruit is genuinely hand-painted: a full apple in wine-burgundy and warm brown with a soft yellow heart, a halved one showing its seeds, a stray cherry, and leaves in two greens with quick black veins. Loose, confident brushwork — you can see where the color bled just past the line, which is exactly how you know a hand held the brush.
  • Hand-painted brushstroke fruit — apple, halved apple, cherry, and leaves on a clean white ground
  • Large low coupe form: 11" diameter, 2.25" deep — serving or console size
  • White earthenware body, glossy clear glaze, no gilt
  • Mid-century American style (roughly 1940s–1950s), in the Southern brushstroke fruit-ware tradition
  • Unmarked — no backstamp, country, or pattern name
Condition: Excellent. No chips, cracks, hairlines, crazing, or repairs. The paint is bright and crisp, the glaze glossy and whole. A few tiny kiln flecks sit in the glaze from the original firing — the ordinary fingerprints of hand-painted period ware, and this piece wears them lightly.
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Hand-Painted Fruit Bowl — 11" Low Coupe Serving Bowl, Mid-Century Brushstroke Ware

Mid-Century (1940s–1950s)

Hand-Painted Fruit Ware

Every well-run kitchen has one bowl that does more than its share, and this was surely it. Eleven inches of open, low-sided earthenware — the shape you reach for without thinking. It came to us from an estate in Hobbsville, North Carolina, and it has the honest look of a piece that spent decades at the center of a table rather than behind glass. You can picture it holding summer peaches on a windowsill, carrying the salad out to Sunday dinner, or simply sitting on a sideboard being admired between meals. A bowl this size doesn't hide. It gathers people around it.The fruit across its face was painted by hand, quickly and with real confidence — the wine-red apple, the halved one showing its seeds, the scattered leaves in two greens. It's the mid-century brushstroke style that came out of the Southern potteries in the 1940s and 1950s, cheerful ware made for daily use and built to outlast the meals it served. This one did. It survived a lifetime of laid tables to arrive bright and whole, still ready to hold whatever the season offers. Some things earn their place at the heart of a home. This bowl clearly did, and it's ready to do it again.

Materials White earthenware / semivitreous china body under a glossy clear glaze. Hand-painted brushstroke fruit decoration. No gilt.
Care Hand wash with mild soap and a soft cloth; skip the dishwasher and microwave to protect the hand-painted decoration. Dry promptly. Lovely for serving, and easy to keep so.
From the Research Archives
vintagerose.us Catalog No. HDRK-VR-0055 • July 2026

Specifications

Dimensions
8 × 6 × 6 in
Weight
2 lbs
SKU
HDRK-VR-0055
Some pieces were made to be looked at. This one was made to be used — and it's better for it. It's a big, generous bowl, eleven inches across with low sloping sides and no distinct rim, the shape potters call a coupe. That open form is the whole point. It's the vessel that sits in the middle of things: heaped with apples on a kitchen counter, carrying the salad to the table, or holding court alone on a sideboard where its color does all the work. The decoration is hand-painted, and there's no mistaking it for anything else. A whole apple or peach glows in wine-burgundy and warm brown with a pale yellow highlight at its center. Beside it, a halved fruit shows off a butter-yellow core and its little cluster of seeds. There's a small cherry, a brown fruiting branch, and leaves worked in both dark forest green and a brighter apple green, finished with fast black sprig strokes for the veins. The brushwork is loose and sure — you can read the tonal shading in the fruit and catch where the color drifted a hair past its outline. That's not a flaw. That's a person, working quickly and well. The bowl is unmarked. There's no backstamp, no country of origin, no pattern name or artist's initials — just a plain white glazed underside and a foot ring. So we'll be straight with you about what it is and isn't. The style belongs to mid-century American hand-painted brushstroke fruit ware, the tradition associated with the Southern potteries of the 1940s and 1950s. We're placing its era there on the strength of that style, and nothing more. We won't put a name on it that the piece doesn't carry itself.
  • Form: Large low coupe (shallow, sloping sides, no distinct rim)
  • Dimensions: 11" diameter × 2.25" deep
  • Body & glaze: White earthenware / semivitreous china, glossy clear glaze, no gilt
  • Decoration: Genuinely hand-painted brushstroke fruit — apple, halved apple, cherry, fruiting branch, two-tone leaves
  • Era: Mid-century, roughly 1940s–1950s (by style)
  • Style: American hand-painted brushstroke fruit ware, Southern-pottery tradition
  • Marks: Unmarked — no backstamp, country, pattern, or initials
  • Provenance: From an estate in Hobbsville, North Carolina
Condition: Excellent. No chips, cracks, hairlines, crazing, or repairs anywhere. The paint reads bright and crisp, and the glaze is glossy and fully intact. Look closely and you'll find a few tiny kiln flecks in the glaze — inherent to hand-painted ware of this age, left by the original firing rather than by any wear or use. On a piece this bright and this whole, they're just proof it's the real thing.

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