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Summertime

CARPE AESTATEM

You can play tennis, launch a sailing boat, dip a toe or your whole body in a mountain stream. You can get up with the birds or go to bed with them. You can try to describe the smell of hot tarmac or the feeling of summer rain on your skin. You can feel golden lightness or quiet melancholy. You can dream of the south and the lure of ‘Coco bello’ or of quiet Swedish lakes in which the clouds are reflected on bright nights and trolls dance in the moonlight. The meteorological start of summer today marks the beginning of a time of endless possibilities. Carpe aestatem! 

THE TASTE OF SUMMER 

Strolling through the streets of Europe, you might think that the majority of people are celebrating summer in orange. For 15 years, the Spritz has been the drink that visually evokes Capri sunsets and radiates dolce vita. If you ask the neighbour's children, summer tastes like either cactus or chocolate ice cream. At Porzellan Manufaktur, however, we have a particular soft spot for lemonade à la lavande, a souvenir from France from our dear colleague Karin Goder, who has been the custodian of the main warehouse and the personified archive for 40 years. She not only knows every number of the more than 30,000 moulds into which legs for figures or chandelier parts are poured, but also the recipe to instantly catapult everyone into Provence: mix 1 litre of sparkling water with 150 millilitres of lavender syrup (we swear by the classic from Giffard) and 3 freshly squeezed lemons. Add a handful each of fresh mint, lemon thyme and lemon balm and leave to infuse for around 2 hours. The result: the Côte d'Azur in a glass. 

SUMMER MANNIA

Thomas Mann is not only one of the most important German writers, but also a man who celebrated summer. The winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, whose 150th birthday is celebrated on 6 June, travelled to Bad Tölz for his summer retreat, rowed across Lake Tegernsee during his holidays, had a holiday home built in Nida on the Curonian Spit, the ‘Sahara of the North’ as he called it, and stayed in the Tuscan seaside resort of Forte dei Marmi. In his large summer luggage: wife Katia, six children, cook, housekeeper and nanny, dog Bauschan and several manuscripts. He had a special love for the sea. It was ‘as old as my love of sleep’, enthused the North German. Anyone planning to travel to the coast in honour of the great writer is automatically doing something for their own well-being. According to Harvard studies, people relax better by the sea. Thomas Mann is said to have been so inspired by the view of the Baltic, Pacific or Mare Internum that many a novel was only finished in the face of vastness and waves.
Image of Coral votive
Coral votive
1.020,00 €
Image of Moth votive
Moth votive
460,00 €
Image of Letter opener
Letter opener
110,00 €
Image of Vase
Vase
1.490,00 €

 SUMMER BREEZE

It was not a summer by the sea, but a life for the sea that Thomas Mann's youngest daughter, Elisabeth, chose. ‘We have to save the oceans if we want to save ourselves,’ said the artist, scientist and politician. On World Oceans Day, which has been celebrated on 8 June for 33 years, her legacy deserves special recognition - and even though the sea is at least 380 kilometres away from the Porzellan Manufaktur, the hedgehog fish, coral spoons and mussel shells on the shelves are a constant reminder of the fragile ecosystem. And the love of the sea doesn't just last until August anyway.

PORZELLAN MANUFAKTUR NYMPHENBURG
NÖRDLICHES SCHLOSSRONDELL 8, 80638 MUNICH, GERMANY

© 2025Porzellan Manufaktur Nymphenburg
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