ceramics

SORT BY:
Image features a ceramic vase with a slender neck and bulbous base. The neck is smooth and gilded. The base has a prickly, fur-like texture and is light pink. Please scroll down to read the blog post about this object.
Surreal Provocateurs
In celebration of LGBTQ+ Pride Month, June Object of the Week posts highlight LGBTQ+ designers and design in the collection.  Nature has a way of informing us—however we engage, we learn from its resilient processes. Nature also has a way of amusing, perplexing and delighting us with its complex and idiosyncratic forms. This edifying and...
Image features a circular dish, the surface with airbrushed geometric decoration of pale peach, grey and yellow triangles and small circles on a cream-colored ground. Please scroll down to read the blog post about this object.
Spritz-Deco
A compressor rumbling. A nozzle hissing. The colorful geometric shapes decorating this otherwise straightforward dish were not painted by hand. Rather they were applied by a device novel to the world of ceramics: the airbrush. The important and prolific German designer, Martha Katzer (1897–1947), created this dish for the Karlsruhe Majolika Manufaktur (KMM) in Baden,...
Image features rectangular ceramic form showing landscape in relief featuring trees, winding river, and two ravens or rooks. Rook with outstretched wings at center top of plaque, the other perched at bottom, below the Rookwood logo. In various colored mat glazes: dark and light greens, brown, tan, pale sea-green, fuchsia and black. Border and sides in a pale sea-green. Please scroll down to read the blog post about this object.
Two Rooks
From the archives, an Object of the Day blog post on Rockwood Pottery, one of the manufacturers featured in the exhibition Passion for the Exotic: Japonism.
Image featues a shaped inkstand with inset inkpot and sander, each with a circular lid; green and ochre decoration of flowers, foliage, and figure. Please scroll down to read the blog post about this object.
A Natural Treasure
Made of faience, a type of tin-glazed earthenware produced in France, this brightly colored inkstand held a pot for ink, a sander, pens, and various writing accouterments. Initially derived from Middle Eastern regions before the 9th century, faience developed in France during the 16th century; the French producers were largely influenced by Italian makers of...
Image features tall, bright green symmetrical urn form of ovoid body with neck flaring into circular mouth, two angled handles at shoulder, and short circular foot. The nylon structure consisting of, rigid radiating and crossed strands that create both surface and interior patterns. Please scroll down to read the blog post about this object.
Historical Inspiration, Revolutionary Manufacturing
To celebrate the opening of Saturated: The Allure and Science of Color (May 11, 2018-January 13, 2019), Object of the Day this month will feature colorful objects from the exhibition. For more than 20 years, Michael Eden has been a professional potter, often working in a traditional slipware technique. In 2006, he enrolled in a...
Café
Café from the Service des Objets de Dessert, dated 1819-20, was drawn by Jean-Charles Develly as part of a table service for the Royal Sèvres Porcelain Manufactory. The factory was founded in Vincennes in 1740 and later relocated to Sèvres in 1756. In 1800, Alexandre Brongniart (1770–1847) was chosen as the administrator of the factory...
Not Your Grandmother’s Teapot
This teapot by the American ceramicist, Richard Notkin, draws its material influence from Chinese Yixing clay teapots. This type of clay is found in China in the city of Yixing in the Jiangsu Province, and is typically a red or brown color. While the clay has been used to create many different wares, the most...
A Charming Scene
Ilonka Karasz decorated this Buffalo China plate in about 1935, during the time that she worked as a designer for the company.[1] Founded by The Larkin Company, a soap factory, in 1901, Buffalo China produced soap dishes and other ceramics that were offered as premiums for purchasers of soap. The Larkin Company’s desirable premiums (including...
American Craft, Japanese Design
This pitcher was manufactured by Rookwood Pottery, an American art pottery company founded in Cincinnati, Ohio. Rookwood was begun by Maria Longworth Nichols in 1880 after she was enamored of the Japanese ceramics on view at the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia in 1876. Nichols originally proposed to her father that they bring a Japanese pottery—“workmen...