Small Mid-Century French Blue Ceramic Ewer with Engraved Decoration of Stylized Owls and Fish by Jacques Blin, 1950s

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This small glazed earthenware ewer is the work of Jacques Blin (1920–1995), a French ceramist originally trained in aeronautical engineering … Read more This small glazed earthenware ewer is the work of Jacques Blin (1920–1995), a French ceramist originally trained in aeronautical engineering before devoting himself entirely to art ceramics from 1949 onwards, in his Parisian workshops. The cylindrical body, with its openwork ring handle, is covered with a cloudy blue glaze characteristic of his work, against which stands out an engraved sgraffito-style decoration: the motifs—an owl with ringed eyes, a fish with a striped body, stylized geometric and plant figures—are incised into the slip before firing, then blackened with metallic oxide during a second firing, a process developed by Blin from 1955 onwards in collaboration with the painter Jean Rustin, who engraved the motifs he designed.

This iconographic repertoire, organized into series in the studio, draws its inspiration from cave art and rock art, adopting their direct lines and economy of graphic means. Blin received the Grand Prix Bernard Palissy in 1958 for these neo-prehistoric creations, followed by the Gold Medal at the International Ceramics Exhibition in 1962; he would later become vice-president of the International Academy of Ceramics in Geneva. His work is part of the post-war revival of French ceramics, alongside ceramists like Georges Jouve, and remains sought after today for the singularity of its graphic vocabulary, somewhere between archaic script and an imaginary bestiary. This piece has an attribution mark,
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