Can anybody help with id of this high quality signed studio pottery dish ?

Hi there, I found this Hors d'oeuvre type dish yesterday and wonder if anybody has seen the signature before.  It is very well made and reasonably heavy. The glazes  and design is very well executed. Let me know your thoughts, would be much appreciated.  Sizes are : Width: 22cm,  Height 2.5cm.

The 'signature' looks like Dec Main, short for 'decorated by hand'. Despite the Scottish thistle I'd say probably from somewhere like Spain due to the tin glaze.

I found this on the internet,

"Iberia has its own myths and legends associated with the thistle.  The eguzkilore (literally: flower of the sun) is a large dried thistle head with a pronounced likeness to the sun.  In the Basque country it is placed by the doors of farms and houses in order to protect them against evil spirits, sorcerers, lamiak (creatures rather like mermaids only with bird’s legs instead of fishy tails), the spirits of illness, storms and lightning.In some parts of Spain it is still used in cooking and in many parts of the country, particularly the north, it is an essential part of the local cuisine."

So perhaps not surprising to find a thistle on something made in the region.

I would say Vallauris but I allways do

I have a Vallauris cup...similar look and a thistle...i'll try and find

Interesting comments from you all thank you.

As far as I know, we don't use thistles to ward off evil spirits here in Scotland.

I guess we just like them because they're prickly.

Legend has it that a sleeping group of Scottish warriors were being attacked by Norse invaders and would have been killed if they hadn't been for woken by the cries of a bare-footed Norseman, who stepped on a thistle. The Norsemen were defeated and from that point the thistle was adopted as the national emblem.

There's no historical evidence of course.

More recently, the great Scots poet Hugh MacDiarmid was inspired by the thistle to write his very long and prickly poem "A drunk man looks at the thistle" (1926).  Here for the enlightenment of Forum members is his description:

"Rootit on gressless peaks, whar its erect
And jaggy leafs, austerely cauld and dumb,
Haud the slow scaly serpent in respect,
The Gothic thistle, whar the insect's hum
Soons fer aff, lifts abune the rock it scorns
Its rigid virtue for the Heavens to see.
The too'ering boulders gaird it. And the bee
Maks honey frae the roses on its thorns."

r-and-f wrote:More recently, the great Scots poet Hugh MacDiarmid was inspired by the thistle to write his very long and prickly poem "A drunk man looks at the thistle" (1926).  Here for the enlightenment of Forum members is his description:

"Rootit on gressless peaks, whar its erect
And jaggy leafs, austerely cauld and dumb,
Haud the slow scaly serpent in respect,
The Gothic thistle, whar the insect's hum
Soons fer aff, lifts abune the rock it scorns
Its rigid virtue for the Heavens to see.
The too'ering boulders gaird it. And the bee
Maks honey frae the roses on its thorns."

I like that...