Physical description
Two-handled earthenware vase, inlaid with coloured clays and, possibly, painted
Place of Origin
Paris, France (made)
Date
ca 1862 (made)
Artist/maker
Deck, Joseph-Théodore, born 1823 - died 1891 (maker)
Materials and Techniques
Earthenware, inlaid with coloured clays and, possibly, painted
Marks and inscriptions
"TH.DECK 1862"
Dimensions
Height: 107.0 cm, Width: 51.0 cm, Depth: 48.0 cm, Weight: 28.5 kg
Object history note
Copy after the most famous vase from the original furnishings of the Alhambra Palace. The original was made before 1400.
Historical context note
The Alhambra, the palace and fortress of the Moorish Kings of Granada, Spain, was founded in 1248 and largely completed by 1354. After three hundred years of neglect and destruction, restoration work began in 1828. Its sumptuous architecture excited a great deal of interest, disseminated most notably by the Plans, Details and Sections of the Alhambra published by Owen Jones from 1836. Of the original furnishings of the Palace, some vases survive.
Descriptive line
'Alhambra Vase', earthenware, inlaid with coloured clays and painted, France (Paris); made by Joseph-Théodore Deck; 1862
Bibliographic References (Citation, Note/Abstract, NAL no)
Garnault P. and E. Garnier: French Pottery ; pt. II, London, South Kensington Museum Art Handbooks., London, p.172 Jervis,SS, ed. Art & Design in Europe and America 1800-1900, London: The Herbert Press/ V&A Publications, 1987, pp114-115, illus. ISBN 0-906969 Baker, Malcolm and Richardson, Brenda, eds. A Grand Design : The Art of the Victoria and Albert Museum. London: V&A Publications, 1997. 431 p., ill. ISBN 1851773088.
This full-size copy of a two-handled vase that formed part of the original furnishings for the Alhambra (the thirteenth- to fourteenth-century citadel and palace in Granada, Spain [see cats. 15-16]) was exhibited by J.-T. Deck at the international exhibition held in London in 1862. It was one of many impressive, large-scale works purchased by the Museum from this exhibition with £5,000 provided by the Treasury. Its interest lay in the way it combined the Moorish style, popular since the 1840s, with a variety of sophisticated ceramic techniques derived from earlier periods.
Joseph-Théodore Deck, later the director of artistic and technical development at the Manufacture Nationale at Sèvres, was already an accomplished ceramicist with a voracious interest in the techniques and decorative styles of the past and of the Middle and Far East. For this piece he evidently collaborated with the writer on ceramic history, Baron Davillier, who in 1861 had published his Histoire des Faïences Hispano-Moresques à reflets métalliques. But the Alhambresque form is here combined with techniques from other sources-painting in enamel colours (instead of Hispano-Moresque lustre glazes) and inlaid decoration based on sixteenth-century French ceramics, known as Henri II ware (cat. 72). When acquired, the vase was described as "A modification of Henri II ware copied from the original by M. le Baron Davillier." J. BWaring gave a fuller account of Deck's work in his lavishly illustrated publication on the 1862 exhibition. Under the heading "Artistic Earthenware," he describes how Deck was awarded a medal for a display in which the
. . . decorative ware designed after Oriental or Arabic models was exceedingly pleasing and effective. Some of these pieces are executed like Henri Deux ware, that is, by an inlay of various clays, but all are characterised by refinement, good taste, finish and brilliancy of tone.
According to Harper's New Monthly Magazine in 1875, the Alhambra Vase was then in the Ceramics Gallery at the V&A, where beneath each "specimen a card tells when and where it was made and the price paid for it by the museum," below a window "showing the building of the Alhambra and its wonderful vase." The report that "an agent of the museum found it "'going a-begging'" and purchased it for far less than its actual value, suggests that the price of £60 was lower than that originally asked at the exhibition three years earlier. By 1884 the Museum owned no fewer than twenty pieces by Deck, whose work was singled out for praise in the volume entitled French Pottery in the series of South Kensington handbooks issued from 1875:
Since 1859...M. Deck has remained the first ceramic artist of the time and French industry is proud of him as being one of its most justly-honoured representatives....[T]he numerous works by him in the Museum hardly give an idea of...this skilful ceramicist['s]...perfect workmanship and purity of form.... [T]he faience signed by him can compare and be placed on a par with the finest productions of the ceramic art of all times.
Deck's ceramics were prominently displayed in the Ceramics Gallery until that space was converted to house the Jones collection in 1910. The Alhambra Vase was displayed again only in 1987 when the present gallery dedicated to the nineteenth-century arts of Europe and North America was opened.
Lit. Davillier, 1861; International Exhibition (1862), Reports, 1863; Waring, 1863, vol. III; Marryat, 1866; Burty, 1869; Conway, 1875, pp. 499, 502; Eudel, 1883; Gasnault and Garnier, 1884; Jervis, 1987
JENNIFER H. OPIE
Liefkes, Reino and Hilary Young, eds. Masterpieces of World Ceramics.. London: V & A Publishing, 2008. pp.114-115, ill ISBN 9781 851 775279.
Exhibition History
Precious: Objects and Changing Values (The Millennium Galleries, Sheffield 02/04/2001-24/06/2001)
Owen Jones: Islamic Design, Discovery and Vision. (UAE 21 March 2012-15 July 2012)
Owen Jones: Islamic Design, Discovery and Vision. (Real de la Alhambra, Granada 21 October 2011-28 February 2012)
Owen Jones: Islamic Design, Discovery and Vision. (National Museum, Oslo 22/01/2011-25/04/2011)
A Grand Design - The Art of the Victoria and Albert Museum (Victoria and Albert Museum 12/10/1999-16/01/2000)
Labels and date
'American and European Art and Design 1800-1900'
The Alhambra, the palace and fortress of the Moorish Kings of Granada, Spain, was founded in 1248 and largely completed by 1354. After three hundred years of neglect and destruction, restoration work began in 1828. Its sumptuous architecture excited a great deal of interest, disseminated most notably by the Plans, Details and Sections of the Alhambra published by Owen Jones from 1836. Of the original furnishings of the Palace, some vases survive. The most famous was made before 1400 and is here copied relatively accurately by Deck.
Materials
Earthenware
Techniques
Painted; Inlaid
Subjects depicted
Geometric patterns
Categories
Ceramics; Earthenware; Vases
Collection code
CER
