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What a difference a glaze makes...

Eugène Baudin (St. Briac, Fr., 1853-1918) was creative with his glaze choices and techniques and it's interesting to see how a pottery form can be transformed by color choice and careful glaze application. This undulating leaf form vase, which has design characteristics harkening toward Guimard's ceramics, captures the fascination with naturalism inherent to the Art Nouveau aesthetic. This naturalism is made obvious in an example of this Baudin vase form seen on the far right (photo Jason Jacques), but is only hinted at in the more abstract drip glaze application used for the current example. The peaks and valleys of the vase are conduits for Baudin's verde glaze to trail across the piece, such that it resembles a seemingly random mossy liquid bathing the vase from head to toe. This vase is also interesting for the lack of an oxblood glaze combination, which is prototypical of most of Baudin's oeuvre. Another example in this vase form can be found with applied bronze handles in the shape of moths. Dimensions: 3.15”(H) x 4”(W).

Born into a family of ceramic workers, Eugene Baudin was widely recognized as a fine craftsman in late-19th-century France. He adopted the family trade, working in Vierzon and Charenton. Also a political activist, he was convicted and sentenced to death, which he escaped by self-exile to England. There he worked at Lambeth and Stoke-on-Trent. Receiving amnesty in 1881, he returned to France and founded the Poterie de Monaco in 1906.