Set of 12 square plates, Ntaban wax print – the Swallows

In Ghana, when this fabric passes by, people say “Sika wo ntaban”: money has wings.

A band crosses the plate from one side to the other: fine anise green and petrol blue stripes, punctuated by lemon yellow highlights. Within their white medallions, petrol blue swallows with anise green feathers fly to the right, carried by an orange crescent. This set of 12 square plates is our tribute to the iconic “Swallows” fabric, a reinterpretation we have named “Ntaban” (“wings” in Twi, in Ghana).

🕊️ One pattern, a thousand names

Swallows with their wings spread wide, each in a medallion: this design, born over seventy years ago, has become one of West Africa’s most recognizable wax prints. In the world of wax, it is the market women and those who wear the fabrics who give them their names.

• Swallows (French-speaking countries): the name given to it by French speakers.
• Sika wo ntaban (Ghana, Twi): “money has wings,” fortune flies away as quickly as it arrives.
• Ago lè fio homè (Benin): this fabric could accompany a marriage proposal or a request for an audience with the king.
• Eneke (Nigeria, Igbo): the bird of a proverb made famous by the writer Chinua Achebe: since men learned to shoot without missing, it learned to fly without landing.
• Sagbadrè (West Africa).

In Togo, this fabric even dressed the crews of the Air Afrique airline, to the point of taking its name.

✨ What the pattern tells

Swallows speak of good fortune, freedom, and the passage from one life to another: transitions and new beginnings. With humor, they also remind us that wealth can fly away as quickly as it arrived. It is a pattern given for moments that matter: a wedding, a departure, a new home.

Our reinterpretation

From fabric to plate, the pattern becomes a vertical band that crosses the piece from one side to the other; on each side, the porcelain remains white and lets the flight of the swallows breathe. The set is decorated to order in our workshop in Alfortville, with the pattern prepared, applied, and glazed by hand before firing. The plates are gathered in 2 boxes of 31 × 31 × 10 cm.

At your table

On a light linen tablecloth, in the sun of a spring lunch, the anise green and petrol blue stripes give momentum to a family or friends’ table. To give as a gift for a wedding, a housewarming, or a new beginning, with this nod: may fortune have wings, but may it always return.

Characteristics

• Contents: 6 large square plates and 6 square dessert plates; modular composition available upon request, at the same price.
• Colors: anise green, lemon yellow, petrol blue, orange, and white.
• Material: porcelain.
• Large plate: 26.7 × 26.7 cm, height 4 cm.
• Dessert plate: 20 × 20 cm, height 2.8 cm.
• Box: 2 boxes of 31 × 31 × 10 cm, approximately 7 kg in total.
• Personalization: colors, first name, date, or short message available upon request; choice of composition available upon request.
• In case of breakage: individual replacement possible (same pattern, same dimensions), as long as the shape remains in the catalog.
• In the same pattern: set of 6 round plates, breakfast set, oval salad bowl.

Write to us to make these swallows fly over your table: a first name, a date, or a short message, and the good-luck gift for those who leave or settle down.