Mister Jalopy has a fine commentary about an article that appeared in the Wall Street Journal concerning a man who paid a lot of money to commission an exquisite 144-piece porcelain service set with hippopotami on them.
WSJ: In 2003, he met a ceramics scholar for lunch and they wound up talking about Royal Copenhagen's 1880s dinner patterns, and how they often featured bears, ducks or birds. Mr. Cohen said, "You know, I think I'd like to see a hippo on one of those."
He scrounged for antique etchings of hippos but eventually decided to go all out and hire photographer Sarah Galbraith to document the names and faces of nearly every hippo in captivity — she ultimately traveled to 101 zoos in 33 countries, including Vietnam, South Africa, Australia and Sri Lanka. (She has chronicled her trips in a blog, "Joined at the Hippo: The story of traveling the world, one hippo at a time.")
Back home in Oyster Bay, N.Y., Mr. Cohen sifted through 3,000 images and sent his favorites to Royal Copenhagen, which hadn't received a commission of this scale in at least a century. He asked for the hippos to be painted on the company's renowned Flora Danica pattern — also found in the collection of Denmark's Queen Margrethe II — with enough teacups and dinner plates to serve a five-course meal for 18. The 231-year-old porcelain company has about 25 artisans who can paint the pattern for regular, five-person place settings (cost: about $6,000). But because of the scale of this commission, the company called in semi-retired master J√ɬ∏rgen Nielsen to do the entire set. (Mr. Cohen says he doesn't plan to sell the collection, or eat off it.)
MISTER JALOPY: Naturally, an effort like this must suffer questions of whether $400,000 was worth it and the inevitable comparison to real estate soon follow. Of course it was fucking worth it. $400,000 is a rounding error when purchasing an impressionist painting that adds no value to the world; it merely transfers bragging rights. It wasn't $400k charged by a private equity fund for management costs incurred while splitting up a venerable family company, it was spent hiring a photographer, painters and one of the five remaining porcelain companies that can still execute such a noble effort. There are valid discussions about distribution of wealth, but this is not one of them.
