Art Deco Squirrel in Crackled Glazed Earthenware by Charles Lemanceau for Saint-Clément, France, 1920s

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A specialist in animal sculpture, Charles Lemanceau (1905–1980) is one of the most important sculptors of the French Art Deco … Read more A specialist in animal sculpture, Charles Lemanceau (1905–1980) is one of the most important sculptors of the French Art Deco period. A graduate of the École des Arts Appliqués and the École Nationale des Arts Décoratifs in 1923, following in the footsteps of Victor Prouvé, he worked for the Printemps Primavera art studios and the Saint-Clément pottery factory, exhibiting at the 1925 Salon d'Automne alongside Mallet-Stevens, Le Corbusier, and Henri Matisse. Not adhering to naturalism, he preferred the pure, modern line, which lends his works a touching poetry.

This squirrel is a direct demonstration of this: the body is constructed from simplified planes and synthetic volumes—a rounded belly, compact limbs, a head reduced to its essentials—while the fan-shaped, striated tail forms a graphic counterpoint to the animal's mass. The architecturally designed terrace incorporates a pine cone with scales and radiating relief motifs, typical of Saint-Clément's decorative vocabulary.

The crackle glaze technique is a French creation typical of the interwar period, which became so fashionable at the time that every household, from the humblest to the most opulent, wanted to own one. The beige crackle glaze, subtly nuanced in the recesses, covers the entire surface with a texture that is both matte and vibrant. Signed "Lemanceau" in relief on the terrace. This piece has an attribution mark,
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