Lamu Plate by Petrus Regout & Co., Maastricht, circa 1880

A rare example of a “Lamu” or “Zanzibar” export plate, produced by Petrus Regout & Co. in Maastricht for the East African and Islamic markets in the late nineteenth century.

The central crescent and star — symbols resonant within the Islamic world — are encircled by a lively garland of stylised blossoms and foliage painted in deep carmine, verdant green, and lilac, following the vivid floral idiom that came to characterise export ceramics made for the Swahili Coast.

As documented by Judith Aldrick (The Painted Plates of Zanzibar, 1997), such pieces were manufactured in Europe — often by Regout, Société Céramique Maastricht, and exported via Bombay and Zanzibar aboard British India Steam Navigation Company ships. Many were over-stamped by Gujarati trading houses, which sometimes received the plates undecorated and completed the painting locally before re-exporting them to ports such as Lamu, Mombasa, and Bagamoyo.

The “Lamu plates” replaced imported Chinese porcelain in East African households after the opening of the Suez Canal (1869) and became a defining expression of Indian Ocean material culture — European earthenware adapted to Islamic taste, marrying industrial production with hand-painted ornament.

This example, retaining its original glaze and a fine craquelure consistent with age, exemplifies the cosmopolitan trade networks linking Maastricht, Bombay and Zanzibar at the height of the nineteenth-century maritime world.

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Provenance: East African coastal trade, late 19th century