In Provence, you will see the cicadas hung at an entrance, hallway or kitchen used as a “Porte de Bonheur” or a symbol to bring happiness and luck to the family and home. Just outside Paris, Virginia, local artist Joan Gardiner re-created these lovely creatures exclusively for Crème de la Crème. Her ceramics are known throughout the Eastern seaboard for telling stories. We are pleased to unite her exceptional work with ancient history of this famous insect.

The History of the Cicada:

The cicada was known as the noisy spokes-insect of Provençal culture thanks to the poet Frédéric Mistral, who in 1854 created the Félibrige, an association to promote the Provençal language and traditions. Frédéric Mistral illustrated his bookplates with a cicada and the legend, “Lou souleu mi fa canta,” Provençal for “The sun makes me sing”. According to the Provençal myth, the cicada was send by God to disrupt the peasants’ endless siestas and stop them from growing too lazy. Love them or loathe them, you can’t escape cicadas, or cigales as they’re known in Provence. If you visit the area in high summer you learn there’s much more to the cicada than just the raucous celebration. The cicadas seem to be having fun as they sing the summer away. Some see them as exuberant beings who understand how to seize the moment and make the very most in life.