Mid-Century Modern Ceramic Cornucopia Vase

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According to mythology, the god Zeus was fed, as an infant, from a goat's horn, literally a horn of plenty, … Read more According to mythology, the god Zeus was fed, as an infant, from a goat's horn, literally a horn of plenty, accidentally broken off the head of his nursemaid, the goat Amaltheia — which explains why sculptural representations of Zeus often show him cradling a cornucopia brimming with fruit. Other gods and goddesses became associated with cornucopias, too, such as Plutus, the son of Demeter, Abundantia, and Fortuna. The funnel-like shape symbolizing never-ending abundance has been reproduced for centuries, in a variety of materials, from bronze doré to glass to tôle to wood to wicker to silver and beyond, and by an endless parade of manufacturers, big and small. No matter the material or the maker, the meaning remains the same and the shape eternally pleasing — small wonder that, in 1960, Sir Winston Churchill's 86th birthday cake featured a cornucopia fashioned of icing, a newspaper reported, adding that cornucopia vases were "just the thing for mantelpiece or desk." This mid-20th-century cornucopia vase, made of white ceramic liberally flecked with gold, and set upon a wave-like foundation, is a particularly handsome example, recalling similar vases utilized by the influential British floral artist Constance Spry, who once filled a cornucopia vase with an arrangement of white camellias and lilies of the valley. It also brings to mind the luxurious baroque plasterwork that was a hallmark of the mid-century interior designer Dorothy Draper, as well as the Victorian revivalism of the 1920s and 1930s, during which cornucopia vases once again became part of interior design's lingua franca, showing up as elements in paintings such as Pierre Roy's "Bazar de l'Océan" (1920), which was owned by the couturière Elsa Schiaparelli, and a textile by Surrealistic giant Salvador Dalí. See less