- Title
- Vase from the Fennia line
- Date Made
- designed circa 1902, produced 1902-1920
- Medium
- Earthenware
- Dimensions
- 13 13/16 × 3 13/16 × 3 13/16 in. (35.05 × 9.65 × 9.65 cm)
- Accession Number
- M.2018.122
- Collecting Area
- Decorative Arts and Design
- Curatorial Notes
This vase was made at the Arabia factory, the most famous and prolific ceramics manufacturer in Finland. Arabia presented a dazzling display at the 1900 Exposition Universelle in Paris, winning a gold medal and attracting the attention of a "Mr. Samuel," the American importer of the Swedish Rörstrand Ceramic Factory, Arabia’s holding company. Impressed by the display, he requested that Arabia produce pieces for the American market (these were later sold in Finland as well). This vase with delicate yellow, light green, and blue geometric decoration was part of the Fennia line, characterized by stylized geometries and a nature-inspired color palette. While the designer of these pieces is unrecorded, many of the patterns resemble those in a series of booklets on Karelian ornament entitled Suomalainen ornamentiikki (Finnish Ornament) that were published by Arabia designer Johan Jacob Ahrenberg from 1878 to 1882 (Karelia was an eastern province of Finland, now part of Russia, regarded as the repository of all that was essentially Finnish). The piece thus represents an effort to visualize Finnish national identity at a time when the country was asserting its independence from Russia.
Bobbye Tigerman, Marilyn B. and Calvin B. Gross Curator, Decorative Arts and Design, 2018
- Selected Bibliography
- Tigerman, Bobbye, and Monica Obniski. Scandinavian Design and the United States, 1890-1980. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Munich: DelMonico Books-Prestel, 2020.
