Inventory Number KAL003
Size 8.25" H x 6" W
Material Porcelain
Period Art Nouveau
Country of Origin France
Year Made 1898
By 1900, the prestigious Sèvres porcelain manufactory recognized the burgeoning taste for Art Nouveau, and with its vast technical and artistic resources, created outstanding ceramics in le style moderne. Léon Kann, active at the manufactory from 1896 to 1908, designed the firm’s remarkable vegetal forms, such as this magnificent ewer. The tendril handle virtually embodies the whiplash curve that helped define French art nouveau style, for better or worse (detractors infamously dubbed it the noodle style). Kann’s ewer design structurally unifies the decorative handle and gourd-shaped body, demonstrating a proto-modernist tendency in Art Nouveau. The overall emphasis on stylized natural forms, rather than historical design precedents, points toward the integration of form and function that would characterize much of 20th century design. This example of Kann’s ewer is decorated with a spectacular flambé glaze, whose basis in copper oxide reduction firing was pioneered by Sèvres during the 1880s-90s.
Marks: Sevres rectangular stamp S98.