A MINTONS PATE-SUR-PATE PEACOCK BLUE VASE

DATE CYPHER FOR 1898, IMPRESSED UPPERCASE AND GILT CROWNED GLOBE MARKS, VARIOUS IMPRESSED CYPHERS, INCISED SHAPE NUMBER 2443, SIGNED L. SOLON

Details

Tapering cylindrical, finely painted and hand-tooled in white slip with a maiden on a rocky outcropping hauling in a net of hearts from a calm sea, the neck with gilt fish scale border
8 5/8 in. (21.9 cm.) high
Provenance

The Collection of Harry Harkness Flagler (1870-1952), president of the Philharmonic Symphony Society of New York from 1914 to 1934, and his wife Anne Lamont (1870-1939).


Lot Essay

The celebrated ceramic artist Marc Louis Solon came to England in late 1870, following the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War. The Minton factory had, under the directorship of Léon Arnoux, acquired a reputation for attracting the most skilled craftsmen from leading porcelain factories on the Continent. Solon enjoyed a long and successful association with the Minton factory producing some of the manufactory's most memorable pieces, including numerous works displayed at the great expositions of the late 19th century. As U.S. Commissioner Blake observed in his Reports of the United States Commissioners to the House of Representatives following the 1878 Paris Exposition Universelle, three years prior to the present vases' completion, Solon's "work is incomparably superior to that of any of his imitators, far surpassing in art value the best examples of figure subjects from the kilns of Sèvres. He alone fully and satisfactorily unites skill in the technique of paste and glaze and the genius of sculptor and designer. His favourite subjects, as is well known, are the female form, Cupids and cherubs. He delights in illustrating the pranks Cupid plays with the hearts of maidens." For an exhaustive discussion of Solon's work at Minton, see B. Bumpus, Pâte-sur-Pâte, London, 1992, pp. 100-151.