The best design moments don’t always come from the grandest furniture; they live in the small, sculptural details left casually on a side table or entryway console. For example, the Mottahedeh Tobacco Leaf Candy Leaf Dish, measuring a petite eight inches long, is a striking porcelain leaf-shaped tray that serves as a miniature work of art. The design faithfully revives an opulent 1780 Chinese export pattern originally created for the Portuguese and Brazilian luxury markets. It tells a story of global maritime trade networks, featuring a small, stylized phoenix bird nestled among the asymmetric, sprawling foliage of a flowering Nicotiana (tobacco) plant. Priced at $210.00, this candy dish offers the same explosive, avant-garde palette as the historic estate dinner services but in a highly versatile, standalone format. Crafted from fine porcelain in Portugal, it requires a staggering twenty-eight distinct colours and five separate firings to achieve its hyper-saturated depth, punctuated by hand-applied 22-karat gold accents. In a contemporary home, it is the ultimate multi-use accent piece that is perfect for holding confections on a coffee table, gathering everyday jewelry on a vanity, or acting as a vibrant catchall on a sleek marble mantel. It effortlessly infuses a room with that coveted, globetrotting sophistication, proving that a high-design lifestyle can be curated one small, exquisite object at a time.

Explore the complete historical collection at Mottahedeh, or shop curated luxury table settings at Scully & Scully.