• Hand holding a 35 cm tall Cornish pottery vessel to show its scale and sculptural relief decoration.
  • Mid-century Cornish pottery vessel with a tapered body, flared neck and raised abstract decoration in earthy brown and ochre tones.
  • Front view of a sculptural Cornish pottery vessel with crescent shapes, concentric circles and an oval motif arranged vertically.
  • Angled view of an unattributed Cornish pottery vessel showing its flattened body, angular sides and textured brown surface.
  • Side profile of a mid-century Cornish pottery vessel showing its shallow depth, tapering body and narrow neck.
  • Detail of raised crescent and circular motifs on a Cornish pottery vessel, with dark accents across the textured clay surface.
  • Close-up of the vessel’s ochre and russet surface, showing fine scratches, speckling and dark brown accents.
  • Detail of the Cornish pottery vessel’s narrow neck and irregular flared rim, with mottled brown surface decoration.
  • Underside of the Cornish pottery vessel showing its pale exposed clay base and angular body.
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Mid-Century Cornish Pottery Vessel with Sculptural Relief

Mid-Century Cornish Pottery Vessel with Sculptural Relief

£165.00
£165.00
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A Cornish pottery vessel with broad shoulders, a narrow neck and an expression that suggests it has already formed an opinion of your other ornaments.

Its flattened, tapering body rises from a wide base to a small, flared mouth, giving it something of the silhouette of a standing figure. Angular sides lend the form an architectural firmness, while the uneven lip introduces a pleasing wobble of personality. Turn it sideways and its substantial frontage becomes surprisingly slender: a small monument with a modest footprint.

The surface is wonderfully earthy. Warm ochre, russet and burnt brown move across the clay, with charcoal-dark accents catching in the textured ground and around the raised decoration. Fine scratches, speckling and visible working marks give it the appearance of something weathered and excavated, although its geometry belongs firmly to a modern sculptural imagination. The pale exposed clay beneath the base offers a glimpse of the material under all that colour.

Across the front, a vertical arrangement of crescents, concentric circles and a pointed oval forms an ambiguous little vocabulary. Eyes, eyebrows, seeds, suns: it refuses to settle on a single reading. There is certainly a face in there somewhere, possibly several, and none appears particularly inclined to explain itself.

Its combination of rugged texture, abstract relief and bold silhouette recalls the sculptural ceramics of Troika, the Cornish pottery whose work helped make the vessel a vehicle for modernist experimentation during the 1960s and 70s. Here, the effect is individual and earthy, with the decoration appearing to grow directly from the body of the pot. The maker remains unidentified; the comparison is one of visual character rather than attribution.

A distinctive mid-century piece with a brutalist sensibility and considerable charm. It needs very little arranging around it—it has already supplied the conversation.

Condition
Excellent condition.

Dimensions
Height 35 cm × width 20 cm × depth 10 cm.

Delivery
This piece qualifies as a small item and can be sent by parcel courier. Delivery is calculated at checkout.
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