Mid 20th Century Lapid Pottery Works Glazed Stoneware Bud Vase

Details

Description

Offered is a vintage Mid 20th Century Lapid Pottery Works glazed stoneware bud vase made in Israel.

Done in textured … Read more Offered is a vintage Mid 20th Century Lapid Pottery Works glazed stoneware bud vase made in Israel.

Done in textured earth tones blending brown, cream, dark blue and light gray over a matte tan glaze, the squat and chunky vase measures approximately 5" in width / depth, has a flat round base that is 3.125" in diameter, a mouth that is 3.125" in diameter, and is 5" in height.

It is signed by the artisan bearing the initial "D."

From Tablet magazine: "The [sic: Lapid"] factory opened in 1943, during the British Mandate, manufacturing tiles and sanitary ware. In 1949, after the founding of the state and under new ownership, Lapid opened its art department, which it would become famous for. Industrialist Kurt Musberg, the new owner, purchased Lapid’s huge tunnel kiln, which was used to fire its hand-painted stoneware at exceptionally high temperatures. The oven was more than 165 feet long, and since it took two weeks to turn on and two weeks to turn off, it worked 24/7 for all those years until the factory closed [sic: in the late 1980s] —except on two occasions when it needed repair. Musberg brought in Bertha Rosenthal, who had a Ph.D. in chemistry and owned, together with her husband, factories in Germany and Czechoslovakia. Rosenthal established Lapid’s art department and hired Elsbeth Cohen Silberschmidt, who became the company’s best-known designer."

"Although Lapid never abandoned its bathroom fixtures, it became known for decorative tableware, which was hand-painted. If you turn a Lapid object over you can see who it is was painted by—almost all painters were women, and they usually signed by first name only. In the 1970s and ’80s decals were introduced, but Lapid never stopped hand-painting." See less