Nielsens Gifts has Long Herend Association
HEREND ARTIST: Tamas Vecesey demonstrated the techniques involved in Herend porcelain figurines in October at Nielsens Exclusive Gifts, located in the Plaza Shopping Center.
Courtesy of Herend
Nielsens Exclusive Gifts was started with little more than a dream and a prayer. Dorothy and Arthur Nielsen began their gift shop in Tulsa in 1946 with $200 and their own wedding gifts, which they sold out of their living room to get started.
In 1976, Art returned from a trip with a wonderful gift for his daughter Andrea, who now owns Nielsens. She fell in love with a perky one-ear-up “spotted” rabbit from Herend. She told her father that it was so darling that they must carry Herend in the store, but he thought it would be too expensive for their current customers. Andrea reminded him that he liked it enough to pay the full retail price for it when he could have bought any gift at market for less than retail. During the next buying trip, the Nielsens looked for the Herend line, and finally found 20 pieces of fishnet painted porcelain on a little round table in a linen showroom in Dallas. The salesman discouraged them from taking a chance on it as there was a high opening order and he had only black line drawings from which to order any additional pieces. They ordered anyway, thinking that all of the pieces would surely be beautiful.
They were not disappointed. Nielsens began educating themselves and their customers about the handmade porcelain figurines and later the fine dinnerware.
Herend is a fine hand-painted porcelain company that began in the village of Herend, Hungary, in 1826 and made china for Queen Elizabeth, the Rothschilds, and other European nobility. Those patterns are still available today. Herend also makes fanciful rabbits and other animals with their famous fishnet design, which is painted in beautiful colors freehand with a very fine brush, and embellished with 24-karat gold. Herend is a fine art that is highly sought after. It is very rare and exciting to have a Herend artist visit a city in the United States.
Nielsens Exclusive Gifts, located at the Plaza Shopping Center at 81st Street and Lewis Avenue, welcomed Herend artist Tamas Vecesey in October. He gave demonstrations and was available to sign and personalize pieces purchased that day. More than 750 pieces of rare Herend porcelain were on display as well.
Nielsens also made a charitable donation to the Ronald McDonald House, Philbrook Art Center, Therapetics, the Center for the Physically Challenged, Dillon International Adoption Agency, and the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Oklahoma for each Herend purchase.
For more information, call 298-9700, or visit the web site at www.nielsensgifts.com.
Updated 11-12-2004
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