In the early 1930s, the sculptor Siegmund Schütz created a series of delicate relief medallions for KPM Berlin, which were originally intended as independent decorative cameos. Building on these medallions, Trude Petri designed a matching service form, the ARKADIA tea service, in 1938 to mark KPM's 175th anniversary.

Relief medallions made of unglazed porcelain, known as biscuit porcelain, were used on the sides of the glossy glazed vessels and plate flags. In the six place settings with different cookie medallions, the main motif of the plate is varied on the saucer. Thematically, the small medallions tie in with the ancient gem tradition. They tell stories from the dreamland of Arcadia, which the Roman poet Virgil made the setting for his works. To this day, they shape the idealized image of pastoral life in Arcadia and Greece. Let's take a closer look at the fragile relief medallions and their ancient motifs:

Ceres and the ears of wheat

The ARKADIA dessert plate with a diameter of 210 mm shows Ceres, the daughter of Saturn and Ops, as one of six relief medallions. She is the Roman goddess of agriculture and fertility. Her Greek goddess name is Demeter, daughter of the Titan leader Kronos and the goddess of the cornfields, Rhea. She is often shown with fruit and a torch, a cornucopia and ears of corn and embodies summer. Before sowing and after the spring sowing was completed, women made a public sacrifice to her. On the medallion, Ceres divides it into a sunny half and a rainy half, on which she holds a seedling in her hand.

The ARKADIA tea saucer with a diameter of 170 mm shows the ears of wheat, the attribute of the mother goddess Demeter, as one of six relief medallions. As one of the twelve Olympian deities, she is responsible for the fertility of the earth, grain and seed. Her Roman goddess name is Ceres. The ears of wheat symbolize life and the abundance of as yet undeveloped possibilities. The oldest finds of wheat date back to around 7800 BC, making it the second oldest type of grain after barley.

Hunting Diana and the moon

The medallion of the ARKADIA salad bowl (200 mm diameter) in the finest biscuit porcelain shows Diana, the Roman goddess of hunting and the moon, protector of women and girls. She corresponds to Artemis in Greek mythology. She is often depicted as a young huntress with a short chiton, quiver with arrows and bow and a young stag or dog as a companion.

Diana is the daughter of Zeus and Leto and is one of the twelve great Olympian gods, making her one of the most important deities in Greek mythology. Diana is depicted on the medallion hunting at night with a dog and a spear in her hand.

The oval creamer with a capacity of 0.12 liters of the Amor mocha service shows the moon goddess Selene and a crescent moon, a much-used symbol of ancient mythology, on its relief medallion. The personified moon in the form of Selene embodies the female principle and is equated with becoming and passing away on earth due to its changeable shape.

The moon is also one of the symbols of fertility. Together with her two siblings Eos, goddess of the dawn, and Helios, the sun god, she brings about the change from day to night on a daily basis. On the delicate medallion, Selene appears in profile with her hair loose in a crescent moon.

Animal companions

The ARKADIA tea saucer features two Pisces on its relief medallion. Pisces are associated with the water god Neptune and the element of water and are considered a symbol of life, but also of death. Hesiod tells how Aphrodite, goddess of love, was playing with her little son Eros on the banks of the Euphrates when the giant monster Typhon appeared to destroy them both. She was saved because the nymph of the river sent the desperate goddess two large, gentle Pisces with a string tied to their tails. In gratitude for the rescue, both Pisces were then placed in the sky as a constellation.

Another relief medallion on the ARKADIA tea saucer shows a dolphin, which appears in Greek mythology as the animal of the goddess Demeter and the sea god Poseidon Hippios. It was considered god-like by the Greeks and Romans. When the sun god Apollo was born on an island in the middle of the sea, he was brought ashore by a dolphin. He was also raised to the heavens as a constellation because he helped Poseidon win the hand of the sea nymph Amphitrite.

Cupid and putto awaken love

The round sugar bowl from the ARKADIA collection shows the god and personification of love on its relief medallion in delicate biscuit porcelain : Cupid with a bow. The son of Venus and Mars is usually depicted as an adolescent boy who unerringly strikes hearts with his arrows, thereby awakening love.

No one can resist the power of Cupid, because: Omnia vincit Amor! ("Cupid conquers all!"). His Greek name is Eros. In art, we often encounter him in the form of so-called cupids, multiple depictions of child gods of love as naked, winged boys.

The elegant ARKADIA milk jug with a capacity of 0.14 liters shows a putto stepping on grapes on its cookie medallion. The figure of a boy is also a diminutive representation of the Greco-Roman god of love Cupid and is often depicted as playful and carefree. In ancient mythology, wine symbolizes religious worship and culture.

The thyrsus rod

A tea saucer variant from the ARKADIA collection shows an ancient thyrsus stick, actually called a thyrsos or bacchus stick, on its medallion. In Greco-Roman art, the thyrsos appears as an attribute of the Maenads, occasionally also of the Satyrs and Silen, the god Dionysus himself or his wife Ariadne. Originally, Thyrsos is said to have been a staff consisting of a stalk of giant fennel, but is later usually depicted as a branch or stick with bandages, vine leaves and ivy.

Nereids, the nymphs of the sea

The beautifully shaped ARKADIA gourmet plate is adorned with the medallion of a young Nereid, the nymph of the sea. These 50 daughters of the sea god Nereus and the Titan Doris are the faithful companions of the god Poseidon. According to ancient mythology, they live in caves at the bottom of the sea, protect shipwrecked sailors and entertain them with games.

In many depictions, the Nereids are riding exuberantly on the backs of dolphins or hippocampi. The most famous Nereids are the beautifully curled and noble Calypso, who loves the shipwrecked Odysseus and therefore keeps him for seven years, and Galathea.

The beautiful Galathea is depicted on the relief medallion of the coffee pot from the ARKADIA collection. She is being carried across the water by her lover, the Cyclops Polyphemus. This love story between the beautiful Nereid and Polyphemus, the terrifying figure of the wilderness who tries to civilize himself out of love for Galathea, forms a primeval template for the well-known folk tale "Beauty and the Beast".

The ARKADIA tea saucer features a delicate relief medallion of a shell. As an animal that lives in the sea, it is often the attribute of sea deities and nymphs. Here, the shell is associated with the Nereids as a symbol. In ancient times, people were convinced that the shell was a sexless creature that emerged from the foam of the sea, like the Greek goddess of love and beauty, Aphrodite.

Aphrodite is often depicted standing on a shell as "the one rising from the sea". The Greek goddess of the sea, Doris, rides on a shell chariot, accompanied by her daughters, the Nereids, who swim around her.

Diomedes and Pegasos**, the fabulous steeds**

The relief medallion on the bread plate and coffee cup from the ARKADIA collection depicts the wild steed of Diomedes, one of the main fighters in the Trojan War and King of Argos. His four wild mares went down in Greek mythology as the horse beasts. According to Greek mythology, Heracles' eighth task was to bring these horses to his cousin Eurystheus. According to Diodorus, he achieved this feat by feeding them to Diomedes himself and thus leading them towards the sea.

The generous 32 cm diameter ARKADIA charger plate offers plenty of space for exquisite dishes. Its biscuit porcelain medallion depicts Pegasos, the winged horse of Greek mythology and a child of the sea god Poseidon and the gorgon Medusa. A flying hybrid of horse and bird, it carried the hero Bellerophon in battle against the Chimera and the Amazons. Zeus transformed Pegasus into a constellation. In a figurative sense, the winged Pegasus still lives on today as a symbol of poetry.

Pan, his flute and the syrinx

The coffee saucer from the ARKADIA collection shows Pan, the shepherd god of Greek mythology, on its medallion. This hybrid of man and Aries was considered the god of the forest and nature. Pan is usually depicted with a curved shepherd's crook or a seven-tubed flute, the panpipe, in his hand. In ancient times, the curved shepherd's crook symbolized the nature of things and their cycle. According to mythology, Pan was the son of Hermes and Dryope, who was so frightened at the sight of him that she fled from him.

The elegant dinner plate lends the table a stylish ambience and provides plenty to talk about: its relief medallion depicts Syrinx, a nymph from Greek mythology. In Ovid's Metamorphoses, she spurns the love of the shepherd god Pan. On her wild flight from him, she is transformed into reeds at the river Ladon in response to her pleas. As the desperate god's breath passes through the reeds, a poignant sound is produced, whereupon Pan cuts the reeds and makes a flute as a reminder of his love.

The ARKADIA tea saucer with a diameter of 17 cm also features a panpipe on its medallion. Pan invented this shepherd's flute, which he named after the nymph Syrinx and on which he played his songs from then on. He also used the panpipe to compete against Apollo in a musical contest: Pan prided himself on playing music more beautifully than the god of the arts. However, when the latter performed his audition on the cithara in an artist's pose with blond curls, a purple robe and a laurel wreath, he won the competition.

Discover more pieces from the ARKADIA collection in our online store and explore the ancient world of legends.