Being the eldest of six children, architect-designer Josiane Raphael was responsible for the most fragile things in the family’s West African home. Those things that needed to be handled with care — the delicate pieces that might easily tear or break.
So when it was time to set the table for dinner, Josiane’s mother entrusted her to put out the linens and the china.
“She knew I would be careful with them,” Raphael says. “All of us were given a responsibility for something when setting the table and getting ready for dinner.”
Raphael, who grew up in Cameroon, says her childhood table was always beautifully set with fine cream-colored table linens and white china from Europe.
“My sisters would then set the table with the glasses,” Raphael remembers. “My brothers were given only the forks and the spoons for the table, because they were always running.”
Once everyone and everything was in place — from the serving platters for roasted chicken with plantains and green beans to the youngest sibling seated in the high chair — Raphael’s parents blessed the table with prayer.
Today, Raphael still is setting tables with blessings and fine china designs that rival those of more well-known chinamakers such as Bernardaud, Lenox, Noritake, Royal Doulton and Wedgwood.
She is doing this with Ebotan by Josiane Raphael, her Bethesda, Md., design firm. The word ebotan means blessings in Raphael’s native Beti language.
The 38-year-old Raphael describes Ebotan’s designs as “a blend of French know-how and African heritage” due to the Limoges china and Thiers gold-plating she employs coupled with her firsthand appreciation of her homeland’s culture and nature.
“So often when people think of Africa and African design they think only of the wood — hand-carved wood designs. These designs are inspired by the many things that are beautiful and a part of Africa” — from nature, from the language and from currency symbols, Raphael says.
David Rice, who heads the Organization of Black Designers in Washington, D.C., says Raphael’s creative combination of African and European artistry, history and craftsmanship is one of the reasons her designs stand out. Raphael’s five Ebotan collections include Akan, Ebotan, Kita, Sanaga and Minga.
In the Akan china collection, the design in gold and laterite (the color of the ground in Raphael’s native village of Yaounde) takes you on a journey to the Akans kingdom; the Akans were miners of gold throughout the Gold Coast in Ghana.
The small round gold pieces that make up the central design of the Akan collection are called “weights.” The “weights” served as a currency for centuries and later were used to make jewelry for kings and queens to wear for special celebrations.
The collection bearing the same name as Raphael’s company, Ebotan, features golden and platinum threads that link weights that seem to float like small planets on the dinnerware. Raphael calls this collection “African cosmogony.”
The Kita china collection is about color and history. It is inspired by the multicolored African Kita cloth, which is worn by Agni dignitaries of Cote d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast), cousins of the Akans of Ghana. Raphael says Kita cloth, which features motifs similar to coats of arms, is the most recognizable sign of wealth and royalty in Africa.
The Sanaga china collection was inspired by the legendary golden crocodiles of Cameroon’s largest river — the Sanaga.
These four elegant china collections are framed beautifully on the table by Raphael’s Minga cutlery collection. Minga, a Beti word, means “the woman.”
“To me,” Raphael says of Minga, “really it is a celebration of art and matter.”
From china to dining tables
Raphael and her husband, Wigbert Raphael, chose to come to the United States in 2002 because she believed she had something unique for this market.
Her fine Limoges dinnerware made its debut in 2000. Last year, she was the architect of the Homes of Color Congressional Black Caucus Showhouse in Washington, D.C. Corriece Perkins Gwynn, publisher of Homes of Color Magazine, says Raphael instinctively mixes her European and African background together in her work — from her dinnerware designs to residential designs.
“The showhouse she designed . . . took on a European flair with Afrocentric leanings,” Gwynn says. “The home was built around the whole concept of the common area being in the round. . . . The rooms of the home were built around that, making such a difference in the look and the feel of the showhouse.”
Gwynn says it’s that kind of energy Raphael brings to Ebotan’s designs.
Ebotan china had been sold at Neiman Marcus stores for about two years until October, when Raphael opened Boutique Ebotan in Bethesda, Md., to carry her designs exclusively. Because of the shop’s good reception, she is scouting locations to open an Ebotan in Chicago. “It’s a city that appreciates good design. We’re looking forward to expanding and are hoping to do that by next year,” Raphael says.
In Raphael’s boutique, you can see her complete range as a designer of home furnishings, with her china ($220 to $310 for a five-piece setting), flatware ($199 to $310 for a five-piece place setting; $95 for a three-piece setting of her Baby Elephant children’s flatware) and scented candles ($43) displayed atop furniture (upholstered footstools, $550, to dining chairs, $1,100 to $1,250, to arm chairs, $1,900 to $2,100) she designed. Table linens also have come off Raphael’s sketchpad and are in the manufacturing stage; she hopes they soon will be part of the boutique too.
“I was always interested in drawing and art as a girl,” Raphael says. “Whenever you saw me, you saw me drawing something. I’m still the same today. Always drawing.”
Full circle
So it’s no surprise to see the range of her creative hand since 1991, when she graduated from Ecole Speciale d’Architecture in Paris. After earning her master’s degree in architecture, Raphael worked as an architect in Pierre & Cedric Vigneron in Levallois, France, and then in the Olivier-Clement office in Paris until 1999. Her projects included apartments, private homes, mansions and the Musee du President Jacques Chirac in Sarran, France. She also designed presidential palaces in the countries of Gabon, Zaire and Cameroon. “That was a very proud moment for me to work on the presidential palace in my country,” Raphael says.
The creative thread in Raphael’s artistry goes back to her Cameroon childhood — from setting the table with her mother and siblings to learning to appreciate beauty in nature and people.
“We enjoyed our food at dinner, but we also talked. My parents encouraged us to talk about our day, what we were doing and even what we were dreaming. This was all part of having dinner together,” says Raphael, now the mother of three. “We were also encouraged by their lives.”
Her mother started Les Ribambelles, a school for children in kindergarten to 5th grade that aims to teach children academic basics but also the importance of “holding hands” with your neighbors. Raphael’s father is chief executive officer of Cameroon Publi Expansion, an advertising company he founded when she was a child.
About three decades later and thousands of miles from her childhood home, when Raphael sets the table in her Maryland home with her husband and children, it’s much the same as when she was a girl.
Everyone is responsible for something that goes on the table.
The only difference is that the fine linens and fine china are designs made by Raphael.
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Ebotan by Josiane Raphael is sold at Ebotan in Bethesda, Md., 4829 Fairmont Ave., 888-843-3978, or online at www.ebotan.com.
