Vase

This is one of a pair of identical Art Nouveau ceramic vases collected by Sir Colin Anderson in 1964. An inscription on the base of each vase indicates that the pair was manufactured by Rainly in England. Stylistically the vases are French in appearance and date from around 1900.

Four bifurcated channels run vertically from beneath the rim to the base of the extended ovoid form of the vessel. These channels create four evenly spaced oval panels around the body of the vase; a sculptural effect that may have been produced by slip casting or throwing. This earthenware vase has been glazed a vibrant turquoise with applications of red glaze around the rim and along its recessed channels.

Its form is snugly encased in a decorative pewter mount. Rendered in high relief, the mount’s naturalistic decoration is imitative of the flowing lines of long-stemmed water lilies. The vessel’s lobed body and the sinuous lines of its pewter mount are typical of the Art Nouveau style. Designers working in the ‘New Art’ style took inspiration from nature while borrowing heavily from historical forms, techniques and technologies.

In the late nineteenth century, European ceramic manufacturers emulated the glaze technology developed in the Islamic world (Southeastern Europe, North Africa and West Asia) and East Asia. In France, potters experimented with alkaline and lead glazes to reproduce the bold colour palettes associated with ceramics produced during the 16th-18th century in the Ottoman Empire and Chinese ‘copper red’ ceramics from the 15th, 17th and 18th century.

Around 1880, French and German chemists Charles Lauth (1836-1913) and Hermann Seger (1839-1893) separately developed the techniques required to produce reduction-fired copper red ‘sang de boeuf’ (oxblood) or ‘flambé’ glazes for porcelain. [1] In 1889, the French ceramist Ernest Chaplet (1835-1909) successfully achieved ox-blood red within the earthenware temperature range. [2]

Vanessa Tothill, March 2021

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