For Marin Montagut, tableware serves as a conversation starter. The 40-year old illustrator and designer recently debuted Les Assiettes Parlantes, a 12-piece line of vibrantly colored porcelain dinner and dessert dishes. Popular in 19th-century Europe, traditional assiettes parlantes (French for “talking plates”) featured a central illustration that often told a historical, political or moral story. Montagut — who started collecting the vintage decorative plates on weekend trips to the Puces de Saint-Ouen market in Paris — puts a playful modern spin on the style with black pen drawings of his signature motifs, from the Luxembourg Garden chair to the Paris night sky to the artist’s own weekend house in Normandy (which he calls “the house of happiness”). Hand-produced in saturated tones (rosy pink, verdant green and punchy yellow), this new collection is meant to be mixed and matched to reflect the personalities of the guests at the table.