Carole Moses Harman Hand-Painted Pottery Dish, Arctic Char, Dated 1987
American, dated June 1987

This large circular earthenware dish is wheel-thrown, with a broad sloping rim and a wide shallow well, and is painted over a cream-white glaze with a single Arctic char in profile. The fish swims to the left across the full width of the well, drawn first in fine dark line and then washed in color: an olive-green back scattered with pale yellow spots, a pale green flank shading to a deep yellow belly, a flush of rose along the lower body, and a yellow-orange tail dark at its base. The dorsal, pectoral, anal and pelvic fins are each drawn as a fan of fine rays, dark at the root and yellowing toward the edge. Two thin blue lines, one on the rim and one encircling the well, are the only other decoration.

The handling is that of a natural-history painter rather than a decorator. The scale hatching, the pale spotting and the red-orange flush of a char in spawning color are all observed, and the fish is placed on the white ground as a specimen would be placed on a page, with the title written beneath it in the artist's own hand.

Dimensions
Diameter: 12 inches (30.5 cm)
Height: 11/4 inches (3.2 cm)

Marks
Signed on the front, at the lower right of the fish: CMHarman.
Titled and dated on the front in dark script: "Artic Char 6/87" - the misspelling of Arctic is on the dish itself.
Inscribed on the reverse in brown script, read as "LMN '87".
A small circular paper label on the reverse carries a handwritten notation, not legible in the photographs.

Provenance
Earle D. Vandekar of Knightsbridge

Condition
Good condition, with no chips or cracks noted.

References
New Urban Arts, Providence, Rhode Island, memorial notice for Carole Moses Harman, 2014.

Historical Context
Carole Moses Harman (died 2014) was an American artist and a long-serving art teacher at Central High School in Providence, Rhode Island, where she was also a founding board member of the youth arts organization New Urban Arts. Her painted dishes belong to a strand of late twentieth-century American studio ceramics in which a thrown blank serves less as tableware than as a support for natural-history painting, close in spirit to the angling and sporting art that has a long following in the northeastern United States and in Canada.

The companion dish made at the same date is painted with a ouananiche, the landlocked Atlantic salmon of Quebec and Labrador, which suggests the two were conceived together around northern cold-water game fish rather than as a general decorative pair.

(Ref: NY08604A-irr)


Condition:
Alterations: Original Condition Unaltered
Imperfections: Some Imperfections
Condition Notes: Good

Origin:
United States

Materials & Techniques:
Ceramic, Paint

Details:
Country of Origin: United States
What type of item is it? Vintage / Antique / Used

Original Condition Unaltered; Some Imperfections; Good