It's the 1970s and artist Arje Griegst is on the veranda of his Copenhagen home, surrounded by shells, plaster moulds and the detritus of failed experiments. A prototype breaks as it hits the floor – swearing ensues. It’s a scene that is imprinted in the memory of his son, the photographer Noam Griegst, who vividly remembers these years, when his father was deep in the development of porcelain collections for Royal Copenhagen.
Arje Griegst, who was a goldsmith by trade, had been trying to translate the beeswax casting technique he used to make his fine jewellery into porcelain – a frustratingly complex task, especially for a notorious perfectionist. Every fortnight, technicians from Royal Copenhagen would visit to help turn his increasingly fantastical experiments into something the factory could actually produce. The process was painstaking. ‘There was a lot of testing, a lot of wax, a lot of stuff and a lot of swearing,’ recalls Noam Griegst.
There was a lot of testing, a lot of wax, a lot of stuff and a lot of swearing
Noam Griegst
Eventually, Griegst succeeded. The result was 'Triton', a collection of shell-like vessels inspired by Greco-Roman mythology and the sea that was launched in 1976. Described by Royal Copenhagen as ‘a sugarloaf seashell fantasy from the imagination of a true nonconformist’, it became one of the company's most technically ambitious creations and, over time, a cult object among collectors.
For Royal Copenhagen, the collection’s highly decorative, surrealist appearance was something of a departure from the 250-year-old brand’s more traditional forms. ‘I’ve been obsessed with it for a very long time,’ says the brand’s current creative director Jasper Toron Nielsen, who has spent the last few years working with Noam Griegst to bring the collection back to life. ‘There had been some hesitation to look at it again, just because of the complexity of creating these pieces.’
Fortunately for Royal Copenhagen, Bo Jørgensen, a craftsman who helped develop Triton as an apprentice in the 1970s, was yet to retire when the project began. To bring the pieces to life, Jørgensen restored and recreated original moulds with their swooping, hand-carved lines – his last assignment before retiring. ‘He remembered all of it,’ recalls Toron Nielsen.
Set to launch this week at 3 Days of Design in Copenhagen, the 2026 editions – a tureen, deep plate, large dish, dinner plate and bonbonnière – are not straight copies of the originals. Instead, Griegst worked with the Royal Copenhagen team to develop three new underglaze colours – Sand, Ocean and Celadon – that draw on samples pulled from Griegst’s archive in a process he describes as 'oceanic alchemy'.
Arje Griegst was born in 1938 in Copenhagen to a Lithuanian-Jewish family. Although not religious himself, he had a strong sense of spirituality. He taught as a professor at the Bezalel Academy in Jerusalem, where he absorbed the city's layers of civilisation, religion and culture, only for them to re-emerge as otherworldly forms and motifs throughout his work. 'My father always said, "you just wait and see, people will understand me later… maybe not in my lifetime, maybe in the next",' Noam recalls.
There's been such a shift in Scandinavian design towards something that's much more decorated, much more elaborate
Jasper Toron Nielsen
Toron Nielsen believes that moment is now: ‘There's been such a shift in Scandinavian design towards something that's much more decorated, much more elaborate in terms of shape, so it feels very right to me that we're bringing it back now.’ Creating experimental and technically demanding capsule collections such as this that blur the boundaries between porcelain dinnerware and art is what he describes as a ‘crazy privilege’ of his job, and something that he brings with him from his fashion background.
He joined the company in 2023, having held senior design roles at Burberry, Givenchy, Brioni and Tom Ford, and has since worked across multiple archival revivals as well as new collaborations. ‘I think that because I don't have 50 years of knowledge of how to do things in porcelain, I probably suggest things or put things on the table that a lot of people would be like, "Oh no, no, no!"’ he laughs. The creative director role, he says, is as much about stewardship as it is about innovation. ‘These collections give us the chance to talk about the brand’s history, show who we are, and what we can do. Not everything we make has to serve the same purpose.’
The company, owned by Fiskars, has production facilities in both Thailand and Copenhagen, with collections such as Triton developed in the Danish capital. ‘I think we’re in such an incredibly privileged position to have a pretty big workshop just outside of Copenhagen, with an insanely dedicated team who have so much knowledge, and it should be just constantly used.’
For Noam, the process has been deeply personal. As new prototypes emerged from the factory, he found himself slipping into conversations with his late father, who passed away in 2016. 'I heard his voice many times,' he says. 'Do this. Not like that. Keep going. That's not good enough.’ He pauses before laughing. ‘Apparently, I've discovered that I'm not going to be the person who lets go of that perfectionism.'
The 'Triton' collection is available from June 10th 2026 at Royal Copenhagen’s flagship store and at royalcopenhagen.com