Majolica Wall Potpourri; DW mark - Made in Portugal

The coloured glazes on this piece of majolica are a bit faded, probably, due to a very high temperature of a glost firing and there is also a small unglazed patch on one of the blackberries. Otherwise, it is well made and preserved.

The base bears a raised underglaze monogram which can be read either as 'MC' or 'PW' (please see the attached pictures). I think that it is likely of English origin but I could not find any majolica manufacturer who would use the mark.

I will be very grateful for any help with identifying this pottery mark.

Not a mark I recognise. It looks to be of relatively recent manufacture - latter half of the 20thC. Might be English but, based on the subject matter, Italian is also possible imo

Thank you very much for your suggestions. After an additional research, I have found this type of decoration on various Portuguese wares made exclusively for the USA importer and distributor The Neuwirth Company Inc in 1980s-1990s (please follow the included links).

Also, I have checked the pottery marks of as many Portuguese factories as I could find online - unfortunately, to no avail.

I would be grateful if someone could come up with the names of likely Portuguese manufacturers who might have made this majolica. As I mentioned before, the raised underglaze pottery mark can be read as "MC, "PW" or there might be some other variants depending on how the monogram was devised.

https://pin.it/ha5ylwug2qb4hb

https://pin.it/7sydlgzwg6rudu

There is also the possibility they’re by David White who made slip molded pieces for Thanet and Broadstairs Potteries in the 60s and 70s. He may have commissioned pieces from this Portuguese manufacturer

I was wondering if it could be a string holder, since there's only one hole in the front.

Thank you very much for your help. From my observations, the eleven pottery marks for David J. White on The Pottery Studio website are all encircled, a letter 'D' (more like a letter 'O') is always much smaller than 'W' and the two letters never touch each other.

The letters on my majolica and on the pieces from eBay and Etsy are consistently intertwined and of the same size, a letter 'W'/'M' has one slanted line characteristically curved at the end and a letter 'D'/'C'/'P' is half-open (more like a letter 'C').

My understanding is that David White was never known as being a distributor/importer or wholesaler, let alone a middleman between a Portuguese manufacturer and a specialist American importer/distributor Neuwirth who was actively buying direct from major and lesser known factories in Portugal in 1980s-1990s all kind of pottery wares, including majolica (in my case, all found pieces come from the USA).

There was hardly any need for the company of the Neuwirth's calibre and leverage and their Portuguese supplier(s), predominantly from the Caldas da Rainha region, famous for its glazed ceramic pottery traditions dating back to the Neolithic era, to have any third party involved in their trading relations.

As far as I am aware, David White worked mainly in porcelain and excelled in crackle glaze techniques. In my opinion, many of his pieces are quite modernistic and very much influenced by the Scandinavian studio pottery. They also demand considerably higher prices in a current market than the majolica I am trying to identify.

I still think that this type of majolica was designed, modelled and produced exclusively for Neuwirth over several years by one of the Portuguese factories, located in the vicinity of Caldas da Rainha. I assume that the maker's mark signifies rather a name of the manufacturer than an individual potter.

As regards the string holder, there are actually two holes in the front - a small hole at the edge of the strawberry and a big hole near pink berries designed, in my view, to create some draught for dried flowers to scent the air. Apart from a potpourri application, this majolica piece can probably be used as a scent burner as well, provided that a back opening is not covered.

The larger hole is for scissors.

The colour palette reminds me of those rabbit group figurines one sees everywhere.