Posted 12 years ago
austrohung…
(584 items)
Three more pics from this vase. ou can hereappreciate the diffreence of texturs between that of the handles and spirals and that of the body of the vase.
By the way, doing a seach on google on "Thomas Webb" "Christopher Dresser" appears the fourth picture in this series... I wonder if someone will get angry if we start considering our vase could be a design by Dresser LOL
It certainly looks like the shell of a scarab beetle.
I came across a reference when hunting around on the net that suggested that this decor came a year after the plain version.
Bronze is an interesting term to use at this time too!
It suggests Bronze Age: a term coined by Christian Jürgensen Thomsen in the mid 1830's.
I look at your vase and I see not just Troy that is mentioned in some of the references to Webb Bronze vases. I also see the horns of the bulls of Mycenae and Minoan Crete.
Heinrich Schliemann was an archaeological excavator of Troy, along with the Mycenaean sites Mycenae and Tiryns. Schliemann published Troja und seine Ruinen (Troy and Its Ruins) in 1875 and excavated the Treasury of Minyas at Orchomenus. In 1876, he began digging at Mycenae. Upon discovering the Shaft Graves, with their skeletons and more regal gold (including the Mask of Agamemnon), Schliemann cabled the king of Greece. The results were published in Mykenai in 1878.
I'm just looking for connections! But I think the more input the better!
On a page I found both of the vases above as forms of pottery shapes:
http://atheism.about.com/library/FAQs/religion/blgrk_troy02.htm
The image is a line drawing well down the page on the left.
Notice the pictogram on the left that is on the vase at right. Look at the horns on the other vase!
The scroll work below the horns on your vase are similar to Mycenaen gold ear-rings.
They were (re-)discovering so many "new things" at that time and it was reflected in the Arts. Christopher Dresser had gone searching for Japanese ideas for Tiffany in 1876 and got back to Paris to see the 1878 exhibition with all of the Bronze Age stuff.
We're still learning about it all.
Wow, vet!!!! You are amazing! Carlos was telling me last weekend about the Mycenaen and Minoan pottery, and even the bull horns, and we've got a folder at our computer full of pictures of pottery full of scrolls/spirals and so on, but we hadn't even reached something as amazing as the image of the two vases. It's so funny I uploaded this bird vase picture today! :)
It's also interesting you mention Christopher Dresser's trip to Japan and return in Europe just to see the 1978 Exhibition. This discards him as designer of the Bronze pieces on display there (if only we could fid out which ones!) but not that of later pieces (according to Londonloetzlearner, Christopher Dresser did designs for their bronze and iris iridescent ranges).
Wow, this is truly exciting!!!
I'm not so sure we can discount Dresser as a designer. Anything is possible. The picture I mentioned may well be older than Schliemann's discoveries. I don't know who did the drawings nor where they came from. I'm hoping to find other images.
This website suggests at least 2 Dresser designs for Webb bronze may have appeared in Paris in 1878 -although the language is a little loose - http://www.christopherdresser.co.uk/collections/Glass/glass.html
The site also has a contemporary article about Dresser showing examples of his work for Coupar and Loetz. The similarity of some Coupar designs to Lotez designs is striking. Some of the Minton designs will also seem familiar. It is also interesting that some of his designs were also used by Doulton, Lambeth, the pottery, who won the Grand Prix in Paris 1868. He was everywhere at that time.
The Japan trip was more than just a mission for Tiffany - Dresser was first and foremost commissioned to go by the British government and also acted as an envoy for the Kensington Museums to the new Tokyo miseum. That makes another link with Tiffany, who visited the Kensington museums and is known to have taken inspiration from their glass collections. There is an interesting video about that on the Victoria and Albert museum website. It's a small world!
2 vetraio - yes, in fact the image seem to come from clipart.com :) but the ressemblances are striking!
@LLL -it's funny you mention the christopherdresser.co.uk site. I yesterday wrote Christopher Morley, the expert in Dresser, about the vase, this is what he told me: "your vase appears to be based on the type of forms excavated by Schliemann at Troy. Dresser would have been aware of such vessels he was closely connected with the Victoria and Albert Museum and knew the collections at the Bristish Museum too. His selection of many SUITABLE, not just weird, models of vessels from all cultures and time is well documented. Several shapes of Webb's bronze glass are, in my opinion, distinctly Dresser like and unlikely to have originated with anybody other than Dresser. There is no reason why DrDresser would not have used Japanese shapes whilst working for Webb - as you rightly point out he had returned from Japan, in 1877 - just as he did when working for Linthorpe pottery a year or so later. Dresser took several examples of Webb glass (not bronze) to Japan and they are still in the National Museum. A Japanese inspired shape can be seen in Fig 324 in my book 'Dresser's Decorative Design'. Bronze glass was introduced at Paris in 1878 and I believe a fully developed range was shown including enamelled specimens. It was however a dangerous process and the fumes given off were very poisonous and injurious to the workmens health. It is my belief that this is why the licence under patent for the process was granted to Richardsons who also had a range of bronze glass, not designed by Dresser; they have weird shapes which are not however based on historical examples. The Webb examples are usually on a dark green glass body"
As for Lötz and Dresser, it seems their Dresser designs were bought to the manufacturers, not comissioned to Dresser.. Carlos has got two vases with the same body (and a more simple flat top rim) of LLL's Iris vase (in fact, I mentioned it at CW, but in that case the shape seemed to belong to Couper: http://www.collectorsweekly.com/stories/51238-ltz-candia-papillon-ca-1899?in=user). Correct me if wrong! :)
AH - I agree! The candia papillon vase is remarkably like the Coupar Clutha vase shown in the contemporary article on the Dresser site. That's exactly what I was getting at, but I hadn't seen your earlier post - sorry! These days there would be all kinds of interesting copyright/intellectual property issues... The new information from Morley does suggest the bronze vases on the Dresser site were at Paris. All very interesting!
Really strange. Reminds me of steam punk aesthetics.
@LLL- I have just seen that image :) so I am glad that confirms our data about our Lötz Candia Papillon :) Anyway, I think it cannot be considered as a actual Dresser design, as it was modifyed by the new manufacturer, Lötz in this case.
By the way, it may be interesting to point out that this Webb vase comes from France, a strange place to find both Lötz or Thomas Webb glass.
Check out this pot. I had forgotten about it but it came up again today on CW:
http://www.collectorsweekly.com/stories/2428-mystery-black-pot?in=activity
This coul well be a contemporary piece to yours but certainly in the Trojan Style.
haha, it couldn't look more Trojan! I do believe finding those ceramics had to be such an important thing at the moment no one could resist to get inspiration from them! Thanks for showing it to us, vet!!! :)
viking? is that because of the horns? hahaha :)
I just found this reference to Clement Massier who did a lustre vase similar:
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portail:Art_nouveau/Sélection
Half way down on the right!