Vintage Royal Doulton Bunnykins Cereal Bowl – Bunny Wash Day Splash Scene, Running Rabbits Border, English Fine Bone China, Nursery 1980s

A Royal Doulton Bunnykins cereal bowl from the © 1988 series — and at the bottom of it, wash day is in full chaos. Mother rabbits in aprons scrub at a big basin, water splashes over the table, a small bunny in a yellow vest leans in from a stool to help (or not), and two more rabbits shelter under umbrellas at the back. Around the inner rim runs the series' signature border: little brown rabbits at full sprint through the grass.

Bunnykins has one of the gentlest origin stories in English china. The rabbits were drawn in the 1930s by Barbara Vernon Bailey, a young nun — and the daughter of Royal Doulton's general manager — who sketched them by candlelight in her convent, recalling the bedtime stories her father used to tell. Doulton put her bunnies on nurseryware in 1934, and they have never left production since: over ninety years of first breakfasts, which makes any Bunnykins piece an instant bridge between generations. This bowl carries the golden-brown two-rabbits backstamp with English Fine Bone China, "Bunnykins", © 1988 Royal Doulton, dating it to circa 1988–1990s.

It is a proper child's bowl, too — the bone china is deliberately thicker than adult ware, made to survive small hands — measuring a generous 6.25 inches across. And it may have found its rightful shop: a bowl full of rabbits, listed by Rabbithole Antique.

A ready gift for a baby shower, christening, or first Easter basket; a match for the Beatrix Potter book sets also in this shop; or a small time machine for anyone who ate their porridge over these rabbits forty years ago.