Madonna

'Madonna' is the Soviet collector's name for the East German (GDR) services of the 1960s–80s — Kahla, Weimar, Wallendorf and others — painted with pastoral scenes after Angelica Kauffman, drowned in cobalt, mother-of-pearl lustre and gold. Brought home by officers and engineers who served in the GDR, a Madonna service in the sideboard became the domestic icon of late-Soviet prosperity.

Today the sets are a study in nostalgia economics: common tea sets are affordable, while complete dinner services with lustre intact, and the rarer named factories, climb steadily. Condition of the gold rim is everything.