Almost every region of Mexico has a unique style of ceramic dish, cooking or serving ware, made from the clay and organic materials that are available in the region. Some areas specialize in brown clay, others in white. Some areas burnish their clay work, others glaze it, others hand paint and glaze. Some regions are famous for a certain color combination and others leave their ceramics in the natural color of the clay. Some regions make their ceramics in the Talavera style or a modified version of Talavera. The plates below are a modified version of Talavera style and are typical of the ceramics found in Dolores Hidalgo, Guanajuato.

One of our most popular items in the Minneapolis shop are the ceramics of Dolores Hidalgo. I personally select all of the ceramics because I like certain color combinations more than others. I am always drawn to the unusual color combinations in plates and in serving ware because I've been collecting and seeing Mexican pottery for so long and I quickly recognize the pieces that are a little more hurried and lower in quality. There's a certain quickly painted style in the usual blue-terracotta-yellow color combination that I skip over because they are SO common at many beach resorts. I prefer the deeper color combinations illustrated in these photos.  You can tell they are hand painted (I love that) and even the sets of plates that were painted in the same design have differences in the size of the design and the outlining of the elements.

We carry many different designs of plates but they all go together because of the cobalt blue edge and the color tone of the palette. So if you like an eclectically set table with unique almost-but-not-quite matching plates, we're your destination!

These and other handmade Mexican plates are in our online shop.