Serra bowl

€68

The bowl the studio is named for. Sixteen centimetres across, deep enough for a full plate of pasta, light enough that a child can carry it with one hand.

Glaze — three are fired at a timeChalkmatt, warm whiteAshsatin, grey-green poolingInkgloss, near black · €6 more

Nine fired in chalk · two in ash · the ink batch is cooling

Reserve this one

Back to the shelf

€9 carriage in Italy, €18 to the rest of Europe, free over €180. Leaves the studio within three working days; thirty days to send it back.

Opened on the kitchen table

Inside the crate

What arrives

One Serra bowl in the glaze you chose, wrapped in unbleached paper.
A double-walled crate packed with barley straw, reusable for the return.
A card with the firing number, the date the kiln was opened and the measured weight of your bowl.
A small square of the raw clay body, fired flat, so you can see the colour under the glaze.

How to keep it

Dishwasher, any programme. The glaze is vitrified and lead-free.
Microwave, yes. Oven to 180 °C from cold, never from hot.
The unglazed foot ring will mark a soft table. Lift rather than slide.
Crazing in the glaze after a few years is normal in stoneware and is not a fault.

Hands covered in wet clay shaping the rim of a pot

Glaze notes

Why no two bowls match

Ash glaze is made from wood ash sieved out of the studio stove, and the stove burns whatever the orchard has dropped that winter. Olive wood gives more green; chestnut gives more grey.

Body: Tuscan stoneware, 25% grog, thrown wet
Bisque: 980 °C, eight hours, slow cool
Glaze firing: 1280 °C, reduction, held ninety minutes
Shrinkage: 11.4% from wheel to finished rim

Written back the same day

Ask the studio

Will it survive a dishwasher used every day?

Yes. The glaze is fired to 1280 °C, which is hot enough to vitrify it into the body rather than sit on top of it. We have bowls from the 2016 firings in daily household use with no dulling. Detergent tablets with a bleaching agent will eventually lighten the ash glaze; a standard powder will not.

How much does one hold, really?

900 ml filled to the rim, around 650 ml at a sensible level. That is a generous bowl of soup, a full portion of pasta for an adult, or two servings of ice cream. It is too deep for a cereal bowl and most people buy the Olmo low dish for that.

Can I order six that match?

You can order six from one firing, which is as close as stoneware gets. Write to us first and we will hold a shelf for you in the next kiln; the wait is rarely more than seven weeks. Six bowls from six different firings will not match and we would rather not send them.

What does the ink glaze cost extra, and why?

Six euro. It takes three coats instead of one and roughly one bowl in five comes out of the kiln with a pinhole and goes to the seconds bench. The surcharge covers the loss, not the pigment.

It arrived chipped. What now?

One photograph of the crate and one of the bowl, sent to the studio address. A replacement goes out from the next firing, or a full refund lands the same week if that glaze has sold through. You keep the damaged bowl; posting it back costs more than it is worth to us.

Do you ship outside Europe?

We do, by arrangement rather than by button. Write with the address and we will quote the crate and the carrier honestly — it is usually between €40 and €70, and duty is yours. Breakages outside Europe are replaced on the same terms.

Out of the same kiln