Day 215 - Bottle, vase, and Musette




 September 21, 2020

Gallery 556 is both impressive and rather daunting in the size and variety of its holdings. The items on display include furniture, ceramics, jewelry, glassware, plaster and bronze statuettes,  relief plaques, a stoneware fireplace, a terracotta bust of Rossini, a marble bust of Napoleon III, and even a pair of Torah finials from Georgia. I'm comforted to see two familiar Degas bronze statuettes of dancers, and surprised to see some roughly modeled statuettes that Rodin made of Nijinsky.


The objects represent the tremendous range of 19th century artistic styles, from Neoclassicism to Orientalism to naturalism to Art Nouveau. Even a cursory reading of the labels fills in gaps in my knowledge. I'd never before realized, for example, that the glassworks of Murano were revived partly as a result of the Risorgimento, with its emphasis on national identity. Today's first object, a bottle with stopper made in Murano between 1860 and 1880, is perhaps 16 inches tall, and so finely blown that only the white stripes that thread up the sides, the spaces between them narrowing as they rise up the bottle, seem to give the bottle substance. The stopper repeats the thin white filaments. Three slim bands encircle the neck of the bottle, further defining the contrast between the narrow neck and the swelling base.


And I'd never really taken account of the importance of vegetal forms to Art Nouveau style.  I'm drawn to a round earthenware vase with a handle, perhaps 8 inches high and made in Hungary around 1900. The piece is decorated with swirling green flowers  and leaves outlined in red and gold, all set against a lustrous blue background. The intertwining forms give the decoration a sensual appearance, and the vase's bright red mouth strikes me as downright erotic- forget mouth, think labia!


Finally,  I smile  at a statuette of a dog, a Maltese named Musette, that's perhaps 15 inches high above its base and 18 inches long - the size of a real-life Maltese?  It was made of Parian ware, which I learn is a kind of biscuit porcelain made to resemble marble,  byAlbert-Ernest Carrier-Belleuse (and we think our hyphenated names are complex!) and executed by Bertrand Gille sometime between 1855 and 1868. Musette sits for her likeness, her shaggy coat depicted in detail down to the heavy eyebrows that fall over her eyes. Musette must have been a much-loved pet, and her owners quite wealthy, to commission this statuette of her. 






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