Gilded Oblong Mirror of Mithé Espelt, 1949

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Marie-Thérèse Espelt, better known as Mithé Espelt, was born on October 16, 1923, in Lunel, and died on September 24, … Read more Marie-Thérèse Espelt, better known as Mithé Espelt, was born on October 16, 1923, in Lunel, and died on September 24, 2020, in the same town. She was a French ceramicist.

At the age of 16, Marie-Thérèse Espelt moved to Montpellier, where she enrolled at the School of Fine Arts and studied drawing and sculpture under Pierre Soulages and Valentine Schelgel. from 1942, she continued her studies at the Fontcarrade School, also in Montpellier, where she learned ceramics from Émilie Decanis.
At the end of World War II, Mithé Espelt moved to Paris, where she worked in Nathalie Pol's ceramic button workshop in the Saint-Germain-des-Prés district. However, she returned to Lunel in 1946 to care for her younger sisters. There, she opened her own ceramics workshop, where she made jewelry, boxes, and mirrors, which she sold in galleries throughout the region, as well as in Martinique. Uninterested in recognition or posterity, Mithé Espelt never signed her work. Consequently, towards the end of her life, some of her work was attributed to another ceramicist: François Lembo. Intrigued, art collector Antoine Candau managed to track down the true artist and organized her first exhibition in 2020 at the Anne-Sophie Duval Gallery (Paris), which opened just days after Mithé Espelt's death.

Antoine Candau, Mithé Espelt, the Discreet Luxury of Everyday Life, Odyssée Editions, 209 pp.

This fabulous piece comes from the collection of a shop in Martinique that sold Mithé Espelt's work. I have official proof of authenticity such as vintage catalogs,
designer records,
or other literature sources and take full responsibility for any authenticity issues arising
from
misattribution See less