Cleveland Museum of Art

Vase

Walter Crane

Date

1889

Medium

Earthenware

Culture

Britain

Department

Decorative Art and Design

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

Walter Crane was one of the leading figures of the British Arts and Crafts movement. His work helped establish a renewed interest in Renaissance ceramics and the importance of illustration in decorative ceramics. He collaborated with several major manufacturers of decorative furnishings including Maw & Co., an important manufacturer of aesthetic period tiles and other decorative ceramics. This vase is one of a series of vases that Crane designed for Maw around 1889 when they first appear listed in the catalogue of the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society in London of that year, described along with a series of tiles that Crane also designed for Maw. Its brilliant ruby-red luster surface is a hallmark of Maw’s work featuring Crane’s lyrical designs while referencing earlier 15th- and 16th-century Spanish lusterware. The red glaze on this vase resembles the color of oxblood.

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