Vase with moths

Adelaide Alsop Robineau, arguably America’s greatest potter, was the first artist-potter in America to produce porcelain objects that rivalled those from Sevres and other French porcelain factories in both design and execution. Robineau, like many women of her era, began her career as a china painter. Soon she began forming, decorating, and glazing vessels on her own and with the aid of her husband, Samuel Robineau. Her early porcelains with carved decoration features stylized naturalistic motifs, such as the bees carved on the shoulder of the vase, typical of the conventionalized designs published in Keramic Studio, the influential periodical that was edited by Robineau and published by her husband. Upon her death in 1929, Robineau was accorded the rare honor of being the first artist-potter to be given a retrospective exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.