Silver Leaves

Although short-lived, the Versailles-based firm Atelier de Glatigny produced lustrous porcelain and porcelaneous stoneware decorated with flammé and crystalline glazes. Staffed by anonymous artists, ceramists, and glaze chemists, Glatigny aimed to produce high quality art pottery at competitive prices, thereby undercutting rival companies. Using rare minerals imported from Africa and Asia, the firm experimented with novel glaze effects, a key selling point of fin-de-siècle French ceramics. Remarkable in its range of colors and textures, Silver Leaves gives prominence to silvery microcrystals that seemingly float over the midnight sky-blue shoulder, and then shade into the glaucous speckled base. Surmounting these wondrous glazes is a handmade silver mount whose neck ring sprouts prominently veined ivy leaves. Fashioned like a piece of jewelry, this exquisite overlay may be the work of Lucien Gaillard, whose metal mounts appeared on others objects at the 1900 Universal Exposition. It is indeed possible that Silver Leaves itself was exhibited at the same event. In any case, the pairing of glazes and silver mount makes Silver Leaves a unique ceramic masterpiece.