EDOUARD LINDENEHER (Vaugirard 1837 - 1910 Paris)

Grande Vase

Glazed terracotta
24 ¾ × 14 × 14 inches (62.9 × 35.6 × 35.6 cm)
Initialed EL on proper right edge of vase
Inscribed in ink or glaze on bottom of ceramic: E Linden...(rubbed off)
Incised on bottom of ceramic: Haviland & Co. Limoges 52 1

Edouard Lindeneher began working for Charles Haviland in 1875.  Haviland had assumed the management of the Haviland & Co./Limoges after the death of his father David in 1865, who established the porcelain factory in 1842.  Félix Braquemond (1833-1914) was hired by Haviland, in 1872, to establish an atelier and center of ceramic research in Paris/Auteuil.  Braquemond had briefly served as the director of the Manufacture nationale de Sèvres, had designed the now famous Japoniste dinner service commissioned by Eugène Rousseau and was a well-known painter and innovative printmaker.  The newly established factory in Auteuil was also conceived to entice Parisian artists to collaborate with Haviland, as Limoges was considered geographically “undesirable”.  Charles Haviland sought to expand his business, as well, by introducing the buying market to avant-garde objects that were produced using innovative techniques.  Thus, in 1875, he also employed Ernest Chaplet (1835–1909) who had been working at the Laurin factory, Bourg-la-Reine, where he devised the process of barbotine for the decoration and coloration of his pieces.

Lindeneher exhibited his work in 1876 at the Union Centrale and the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition in the United States.  There he presented La Vigne, a spectacular terracotta vase decorated in brilliant color with appliqués of leaves and branches in high relief.  Lindeneher utilized the natural world as the inspirational source for the decoration of his pieces—leaves, shells, and flowers.  In our vase, the luminous turquoise background accentuates the colors of the leaves and movement of the vines that encircle it.  At almost 70 centimeters high, almost twice the height of La Vigne, our vase is a tour de force of fabrication and decoration.