French ceramist Taxile Maximin Doat earned international renown for expertise in high-fire porcelain glazing and decoration. Particularly noteworthy was his mastery of pâte-sur-pâte, a labor-intensive process for creating intricate, translucent-white low-relief designs on richly colored backgrounds. Inspired by a form of Chinese decoration, the technique was developed in the mid-nineteenth century at Sèvres, the leading French porcelain manufacturer, and embraced by other major factories such as Meissen in Germany and Minton in England. Doat, who began working at Sèvres in the late 1870s, used the technique to ornament his works for the prestigious firm as well as in the more experimental works he created in his nearby atelier. The classical scene of putti playing music on this vase exemplifies the historicist imagery associated with pâte-sur-pâte, while its flowing glaze and overall shape—that of a wild gourd known as a coloquinte—demonstrates his interest in forms directly taken from nature, a leitmotif of the international Arts and Crafts movement.
In 1909, Doat was recruited to be director of ceramics at the newly founded Art Academy in University City, Missouri. Edward Gardner Lewis, who funded the enterprise, boasted of this distinguished hire: “Doat has abandoned one of the best positions in the ceramic art world to take charge of the [American Woman’s] League’s Art Ceramics School. The position that he held in the Sèvres potteries was alone sufficient to guarantee him foremost rank among the world’s ceramic artists.” Doat was one of several acclaimed ceramists to join the organization—Lewis also recruited the American Adelaide Alsop Robineau and British émigré potter Frederick Hurten Rhead. While the pottery was an artistic success and the school a noble experiment, neither was economically viable, and in 1911 Lewis declared bankruptcy. The following year, Doat returned to head up the University City Porcelain Works, where he adopted labor-saving production techniques in an ultimately failed effort to make the company profitable.
LACMA’s collection includes two gourd-shaped Doat vases: this coloquinte and a 1913 example that he designed at University City (see M.2021.151). The contrast between this earlier, more academic and elaborate vase and the later one demonstrates how Doat adapted his formal experiments for less expensive mold production.
Staci Steinberger
2024