Axel Salto

Hostler Burrows, New York

Acquired from the above by the present owner

Det Brændende Nu - Axel Salto, exh. cat., Kunstindustrimuseet, Copenhagen, 1989, front cover and p. 43 (for related examples)

Susanne Bruhn and Christina Rauh Oxbøll, eds., Axel Salto: Master of Stoneware, exh. cat., CLAY Museum of Ceramic Art Denmark, Middelfart, 2017, no. 383

No two moments on this sensational and seductive vase are alike. The form seethes with shapes, some rounded, some spiky, all made visceral by the deep red “Oxblood” glaze (a color first developed by Chinese ceramic technicians in the eighteenth century). Underneath the active surface is the severe profile of a classical vase, but that shape is overwhelmed by the thick carapace of “sprouting” ornaments. These would have been made in separate small molds and then applied by hand to a thrown form, a compositional method that allowed Salto to improvise during the process of assembly, as if he were creating a collage. The finished effect is extremely suggestive, possessed of what Salto himself would have called “daemonic” potency.