1936-1975
Reinhard Richter’s AS model, which came into production in 1936, was actually a mixture of many styles, critically also labelled a “mongrel” of styles. The style was aimed at the export markets, to compete with English tableware but from the outset it proved to be a success in Finland as well. The special needs of the export countries caused the number of items in the range to grow to over 50. Production of the AS model continued until 1974 and during that time the range had about fifty different patterns – copper prints, transfers, stamped decorations and lines.

One of the first patterns to be used was the new Maisema (Landscape). Landscapes are an old theme for patterns already used in 16th century England. Typically, the rim would be decorated with a lush floral theme and the central pattern would display different kinds of English rural landscapes, often with castle-like buildings, mills, boats, cows, trees and even people. The Maisema pattern originally came to Arabia as early as 1882 through Rörstrand. The pattern had been put into production at Rörstrand in the 1860s.

The copper plates were re-engraved for the new Maisema pattern, “especially for Arabia” as the publicity pamphlet states. At first the pattern was manufactured in dark blue but later red, green, brown, black (grey) and green-blue (1940s-50s) were added. The dark blue version, however, stayed in production the longest, i.e. right up to 1975 when the AS model was discontinued. That is also when Arabia’s copper-press was discontinued, which meant other copper-plate prints also ceased to be produced. There was, however, to be one more twist in the story of the blue AS Maisema in the late 1980s-early 1990s as Arabia’s mail-order business, Arabia Fantasy, had some coffee cups from this range produced abroad.
All these different Maisemas can be distinguished form each other from the clear stamps on the bottom of the objects.