Vase
Manufacturer Rookwood Pottery Company American
Decorated by William E. Hentschel
Not on view
This vase exemplifies The Rookwood Pottery Company’s embrace of the Art Deco aesthetic. It was designed and decorated by William Ernst Hentschel, a talented printmaker and artist who worked at the pottery from 1907–1939 and who helped develop and popularize the Art Deco style at Rookwood. The rhythmic, graphic style characterizes his work from this period. The raised decoration is enhanced by the later Mat/Mat Moderne glaze, a glaze developed to optimize the relief designs. (The horizontal rings at the base of the vase help prevent the glaze from flowing down during the firing.)
Rookwood Pottery was one of only a few art potteries from the turn of the twentieth century that survived World War I; it continued to introduce designs that responded to the then current Art Deco taste. This vase reveals Hentschel’s facility with the organic, stylized motifs that dominated his output in the 1920s.
