Handmade Stoneware Tapas Plate – Shoal

Shoal handmade stoneware tapas plate with cobalt blue sardines

Shoal • Small Plate

1 Plate

€45,95

Shoal • Small Plate

€45,95

INDIVIDUALLY HAND-PAINTED · EACH ONE UNIQUE

• New • In stock • Ships in 1 week

Cobalt Blue • Handmade in Spain • Stoneware • Dinner Plate • Ø 19 cm × H 3.5 cm • Dishwasher & Microwave Safe

Hand-Painted Sardines · Organic Finish

• Quantity

The kind of plate that brings people to the middle of the table. Four sardines drift through cobalt blue, surrounded by loose splashes and marks that give the Shoal Small Plate its lively, graphic character.

Handmade and individually hand-painted in Spain, each stoneware plate carries subtle variations in shape, glaze and brushwork, so no two are exactly alike. The cobalt sardine motif sits against warm cream stoneware, giving the piece a distinctly Mediterranean feel.

At 18 cm, it is made for tapas, starters, bread, olives, desserts and smaller dishes. Available individually or as a set of 2 or 4 plates.

Dishwasher & microwave safe · Ø 18 cm · H 3.5 cm · Stoneware · Handmade and hand-painted in Spain

Explore all Handmade Ceramic Plates, All Tableware, Mugs & Cups and Ceramic Bowls.

18 cm diameter · 3.5 cm deep · 0.80 kg
Handmade in Spain
Dishwasher, oven and microwave safe
Built for daily use. No special treatment needed.

DELIVERY
All orders dispatched within 5 working days

United Kingdom
• Costs: 1 plate £6.00 · 2 plates £11.00 · 4 plates £20.00
• Free UK delivery on orders over £150.00

Europe
• Costs: 1 plate £10.00 · 2 plates £18.50 · 4 plates £32.00

USA & Canada
• Costs: 1 plate £22.00 · 2 plates £40.00 · 4 plates £70.00

RETURNS
• You have 30 days from delivery to return anything, for any reason. Email team@cardoonstudio.com with your order number and we'll take it from there.
• If something arrived faulty or not as described, we'll refund your delivery charge too.

REFUNDS
• Processed within 10 days of receiving your return, back to your original payment method.

I tend to reach for these when setting a table that isn't too formal, something that works just as well indoors as it does outside. They sit easily with linen, simple glassware, whatever is already there. The blue lifts the table without taking over. Over time you start mixing them in without thinking. They become part of how you set the table.

Cobalt blue arrived in this part of the world over a thousand years ago, carried by artisans who brought the technique from Persia, through North Africa, across the Mediterranean. They painted it beneath the glaze, not over it. A decision that turned out to be permanent.

By the 15th century, the workshops around Valencia were the most sophisticated ceramic producers in Europe. The Medicis collected their work. The Pope ordered their tiles. The cobalt travelled further than the people who made it.

What's remarkable is that it never left. Not as museum craft, not as heritage tourism, just as a living practice, still running in the hands of independent makers who chose to stay, to work slowly, to keep making things the way they know how. The Mediterranean light. The sea on a Tuesday morning. A landscape that finds its way into the clay whether they intend it to or not.

The world moved fast. They kept this as a sign of who they are.

Red earth mixed with quartz and feldspar, fired until it holds heat, resists water, lasts. High-fired twice, dense enough to go from oven to table without complaint, and look better for it over time.

Each plate is hand-thrown and hand-painted, so the variations you see, where the cobalt pooled, where the brush lifted, are the record of how it was made. Not inconsistency. The maker's hand, still visible.

The motifs are painted beneath the glaze, not over it. They become part of the clay itself. They will not fade.

This is what Glenn Adamson, in Fewer Better Things*, calls 'material intelligence' — a knowledge that lives not just in the hands, but in an understanding of how clay moves, resists, and transforms; how it holds heat, absorbs light, and feels right in the hand.

Email team@cardoonstudio.com for complimentary personalisation—add a special date, meaningful quote, or initials to the back of your piece.

Close-up of hands applying a thick white clay or plaster slip to a white ceramic vessel.

MADE FOR EVERYDAY TABLE.

Plates designed for everyday meals and the occasions that happen around them. From small dishes and shared plates to dinner settings, made to be used often.

PAINTED & GLAZED ONE BY ONE.

Each plate is shaped, painted and glazed by hand. Brushstrokes, glaze movement and subtle variations remain visible, so no two pieces are exactly alike.

ROOTED IN VALENCIA.

Made in small batches by specialist ceramic makers in Manises, Spain. Generations of knowledge in clay, glaze and firing give each piece its depth, warmth and distinctly Mediterranean character.