By Maribeth Keane — I started as a collector and I’m a web designer, so I thought I would design a website from my passion. I threw it up there and people just found me and it started to take off. Fiesta is made in West Virginia, and I’m from West Virginia originally. I was a thrift store fanatic in college, and I would see this unmarked colored dishware that just really caught my eye. That was probably Riviera, because Fiesta would be marked. People would know Fiesta, but Riviera wouldn’t be marked, so...

Bowes Curator Howard Coutts on Meissen, Staffordshire, and Sèvres

By Maribeth Keane — I’m the curator of the ceramics bit of the Bowes Museum. It’s a big museum with 30 galleries of which three or four are devoted to ceramics alone. Within Britain, it’s got one of the biggest and most expensive groups for people to see. We have about 5,000 or so pieces in the collection. We’re not sure exactly. It’s all registered, but of course we get tea sets registered under one number, so I think in total it’s about 5,000. I’ve collected both cups and saucers over the years, which...