New Providence
— — the harbour the morning the cruise ships are gone.
Not only on a wall.
“The most populous island in the Bahamas and the one most travellers actually mean when they say Nassau. Pink sand on the north and west shores, the long ridge of Cable Beach, the bridge that lifts traffic across to Paradise Island. Atlantic on one side, the deeper blue of the Tongue of the Ocean on the other. Old colonial pastels in the capital, container ships out past the lighthouse.
New Providence, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
New Providence is a 207-square-kilometre island in the central-western Bahamas, holding the national capital Nassau and roughly 70% of the country's population. The island is low — its highest point on the Fort Fincastle ridge sits about 38 metres above sea level. Lynden Pindling International Airport on the western end is the country's main gateway. Two bridges connect to Paradise Island across Nassau Harbour, opened in 1966 and 1998. The island sits on the Great Bahama Bank, which colours the surrounding water the shallow turquoise the country is known for.
The colour comes from the Great Bahama Bank, a vast carbonate shelf where the water sits at depths of three to ten metres before dropping off sharply into the Tongue of the Ocean trench, which reaches roughly 4,000 metres at its deepest. Sunlight reflects off the white sand floor of the shallow bank and reads as turquoise; the trench reads as a deep ink-blue. The line between them is visible from the air on the descent into Nassau.
The British colonial core of Nassau dates to the 18th century, most of it built from the soft island limestone that lies just under the soil. Government House on Mount Fitzwilliam, painted its distinctive pink, has stood since 1737 in successive forms. The Queen's Staircase, carved by enslaved labourers between 1793 and 1794, climbs 66 steps cut directly from the limestone ridge. Fort Charlotte, completed in 1789 under Lord Dunmore, is the largest of the island's surviving forts and overlooks the western entrance to Nassau Harbour.