Lot 214
JEAN BESNARD
LARGE TAPERED VASE, CIRCA 1930
Auction: 14 April 2010 at 12:00 BST
Description
ovoid form, earthenware with impressed geometric decoration covered in a pale pink glaze, incised mark 'Jean Besnard France'
Dimensions
40cm high
Footnote
Literature: McCready, Karen 'Art Deco and Modernist Ceramics', London 1995, pages 135 and 136
Note: Jean Besnard (1889-1958) was an artist-potter known for his vases characterised by their incised or impressed surface decoration.Although his work is said to have been inspired by Mediterranean, tribal and Savoie pottery, he transformed these historical models into highly individual statements.
He exhibited regularly in Paris at the Salon des Artistes Decorateurs, the Salon d'Automne, and the Salon des Tuilleries throughout the 1920's and 1930's, and won a silver medal at the 1925 Paris Exposition. His simple forms provided an appropriate background for complex surface treatments. As with the present example some of his works with impressed surface marks are related to African pottery that mimics basketry.