If a love of old things runs in your family, holiday shopping might be tricky. The passions of antique collectors run rather esoteric – they’re either difficult to predict or so niche that you’ll drive yourself mad finding just the right Bakelite bangle or the elusive saucer to complete the 189-piece Victorian china set. But it’s likely that those who understand old world beauty are also the most likely to appreciate new design and craft — the kind that’s destined to become more precious and valued over time. For them, the Waylande Gregory ceramics collection at Mario’s can be properly described as perfect.

Gregory was an important American Deco-era sculptor and ceramicist; his work has been collected by no less than the Whitney, the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art, and the Smithsonian. His large public pieces stand at sites of former World Fairs and world-class higher education campuses.

But it’s okay if you don’t recognize his name. In the end, he sort of faded out, but a lucky discovery (involving a basement, some boxes, the designs pictured here, and more) by his great-nephew Bryan Downey revived his legacy — and the still very modern look of these decorative home pieces.

In his day, Gregory’s work was sold at the best shops of the time: Tiffany & Co. and Neiman Marcus among them. Downey has seen to it that the just-released pieces are available through similarly exclusive retailers. Earlier this month, they were displayed inside the coveted windows at Bergdorf Goodman in New York. At Mario’s, they join a well-edited collection of lifestyle pieces that includes those irresistible and iconic Fornasetti plates.

The thoughtful, studious, and careful reissue of Gregory’s graphic yet nature-minded and organic, purpose-driven yet artfully blinged-out vases, boxes, plates, and vessels reminds us that new is a relative term – one that, if you’re lucky, might be applicable again and again.