Kaiser Porcelain Fossil Relief Vase, White Bisque With Ammonites and Shells, Sculptural Pinched Form

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Description

Kaiser Porcelain Fossil Relief Vase, White Bisque with Ammonites and Shells, Sculptural Pinched Form
West Germany, Circa 1967–1970
Attributed to … Read more Kaiser Porcelain Fossil Relief Vase, White Bisque with Ammonites and Shells, Sculptural Pinched Form
West Germany, Circa 1967–1970
Attributed to Manfred Frey

This sculptural white porcelain vase by Kaiser of West Germany takes the form of a four-sided block with a pinched, gently undulating rim, its matte bisque surfaces molded in deep relief as a rocky matrix embedded with fossils. Each face differs: coiled ammonites, a scallop shell and a segmented turret shell emerge from the craggy ground, so that the vase reads as a piece of fossil-bearing stone from every angle. The unglazed bisque exterior contrasts with the smooth glazed white interior and base band, a play of rough against polished that is characteristic of Kaiser's bisque relief wares of the late 1960s and 1970s.

The fossil relief series belongs to the family of sculptural white bisque designs associated with Manfred Frey, Kaiser's in-house designer, whose name is attached to many of the firm's matte-white relief vases, from the geometric Op Art models of the 1960s to the organic rock and fossil surfaces of the 1970s. Kaiser was founded by August Alboth in Coburg in 1872 as a porcelain-decorating business; it moved to Kronach in 1899 and, in the 1950s, to a new factory at Staffelstein in Upper Franconia, Bavaria. Trading for decades as Alboth & Kaiser, the firm adopted the Kaiser name in 1970, marking its wares AK Kaiser; this vase, bearing the crowned AK monogram alone, was made in the years just before the change.

At five inches high and less than three inches deep, the vase sits comfortably on a bookshelf, mantel or desk, where raking light brings up the relief. It is equally effective grouped with other white bisque pieces or set alone as a small sculpture beside shells, minerals and other natural-history objects.

Dimensions
Height: 5 inches (12.7 cm)
Width: 6⅛ inches (15.6 cm)
Depth: 2¾ inches (7.0 cm)

Marks
Blue printed AK monogram beneath a crown, the Alboth & Kaiser mark of about 1967–1970; impressed model number 136. No designer’s signature.

Provenance
Earle D. Vandekar of Knightsbridge

Condition
Good.

Historical Context
Kaiser's white bisque relief vases were a signature of West German design in the late 1960s and 1970s, marrying the eighteenth-century tradition of unglazed biscuit porcelain, first made fashionable at Vincennes and Sèvres, to bold modern surface sculpture. Fossil subjects, ammonites above all, suited the material well, the matte white body recalling weathered limestone, and the series remains a favorite with collectors of the firm's work.

Fittingly, Staffelstein lies in one of Germany's classic Jurassic fossil districts. The petrefact collection at nearby Banz Abbey, assembled in the first half of the nineteenth century, is among the oldest in Bavaria and preserves a cross-section of life in the Jurassic sea that once covered the region.

(Ref: NY11233-mrx) See less