Royal Check shares its hand-painted checkerboard with Courtly Check, the pattern MacKenzie-Childs is best known for, but swaps the black and white for a deep, saturated blue drawn from the landscape around the company’s studios on Cayuga Lake in upstate New York. Bluebirds, native flowers, water and sky.

Because each piece is painted by hand, the squares are never quite square. The edges soften and the grid takes on a slight waviness, which is the detail most people notice first when they see Royal Check in person rather than in a photograph. No two pieces match exactly, and they are not meant to.

Where Royal Check works

It is more flexible than a strong color usually is. The blue is deep enough to hold a formal table and relaxed enough for an everyday one, and it sits naturally in red, white and blue schemes from Memorial Day through Labor Day without looking like seasonal decoration. It also mixes: Royal Check next to Courtly Check reads as deliberate rather than clashing, since the two share a pattern and differ only in color. Sterling Check and Mocha Check sit alongside it the same way.

Where to start

The kitchen pieces are the ones people tend to buy first and keep out year round. The Royal Check Tea Kettle in 3 Quart and the 2 Quart are the signature shape, and a kettle sits on the stove where the pattern gets seen every day. The Large, Medium and Small Canisters work as a graduated set on a counter, and the Cookie Jar with Enamel Lid belongs with them.

For a first piece rather than a set, the Round Tray, the Utensil Holder and the Paper Towel Holder each stand on their own. The Tall Vase and the Squashed Pot move the pattern out of the kitchen entirely.

Dekado has been an authorized MacKenzie-Childs retailer since 2010. If you are building a Royal Check collection over time and want to know what is coming back into stock, we can tell you.