Topic: Heavily gilded and finely painted mushroom vase

[chilternhills]

I found this very unusual and beautiful vase today. It has a heavily gilded rim and is hand-painted in a very fine floral pattern. I looked long and hard at the pattern in case it was printed, but I conclude it's painted. There is no repetition in the pattern and the thickness of the paint varies and is sometimes minutely blobby. The width of the lines is about a fifth of a millimeter - just astonishing. There seems to be a extremely thin, greyish wash over the top of the puce floral decoration, giving a frosted effect. I presume that was done to give some contrast for the decoration.

The vase stands about 11 cm high at the highest point, about 8.5 cm high to the bottom of the rim, 19 cm in diameter across the rim, and the base is 7.7 cm across. The pontil mark has been ground out and is slightly concave. There is a line of gilding around the base, just under 2 mm wide.

It is in very good condition, but at a guess someone in the past tried cleaning it and removed some of the light grey wash over the painting in a small area. Fortunately it is hardly noticeable. The base, along the edges, has a fair amount of wear.

I don't know how old the vase is, but at a guess late 19th century or Art Nouveau. Probably the pattern of the gilding on the rim will be the biggest clue to age.

I have never seen anything like this before. I can't find anything on the Internet either. Can anyone shed more light on the vase, please?

Many thanks.

Anton

PS. Sorry about the first picture. It was too dark when I took it and had to adjust it. The colour has blown out somewhat.

[Ekimp]

Hi, can’t help with an attribution but it looks like an interesting piece. An awful look of work if it was all done by hand but I think I can see a seam in the pattern on the stem on your second photograph?

In that photo, if you look at the stem where it is wasted in and come in about a third of the way across from the left, parts of the pattern look to abruptly stop half way through a leaf/flower/stem etc. I think you can trace the line almost vertically most of the way up from the base. I think it might actually split into a ‘v’ from the bigger flower up, at about a third of the height. Nicely done if so.

[chilternhills]

Actually, yes you are correct. There is an abrupt change in the pattern in the position you mention. I had to get a magnifying glass out to take a closer look. Most of it is transfer printed, but there is hand retouching and infilling. Those parts stand out more than the rest and it's deceiving. The pattern does not repeat.

[chilternhills]

I notice that Moser often has wide gilded patterned bands on their pieces. Could it be by Moser?

[flying free]

The shape of the stem remind me of some Poschinger vases (more recent production).
I wonder if they were experimenting with printed and gilded?

m