Bottle vase

This distinctive square-shaped bottle form vase is a rare example of the monochrome hand-carved pottery that was made during the early experimental years of Rookwood Pottery. The decorator approaches the four sides of the square vase as a canvas for her spare, asymmetrical incised design of branches with leaves. The composition is notably Japanese in style, and the form and decoration were based on a Japanese bottle in the collection Rookwood Pottery founder Maria Longworth Nichols. Although unsigned, this is most likely the work of Rookwood decorator Harriet Wenderoth, an artist who worked at Rookwood during the 1880s who excelled at carved and incised decoration in the wet clay.