Returned to lender The Met accepts temporary loans of art both for short-term exhibitions and for long-term display in its galleries.
Tenebre (FF.502)
Ettore Sottsass Italian, born Austria
Not on view
Sottsass conceived the Tenebres while recovering from nephritis. The objects were then shown in 1963 in the exhibition "Ceramiche delle tenebre" (Ceramics of Darkness) at Il Sestante in Milan. In somber colors with geometric patterning evocative of Eastern religious symbols, they reflect his state of mind during his treatment. He suffered a fever dream in which the phases of the moon during the night passed into the sun and daylight. The ceramics use the moon as their leitmotif. Writing about the Tenebres, Sottsass stated: "The more I think about darkness, the less I know what it is like and the more difficult it gets to define it." For him, "the violet light of a hospital corridor" was an example of how one might plunge into darkness.
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