Aladdin Vase

This monumental vase–a tour de force–is one of the most important examples made in the early years of the American Art Pottery movement. Decorated by Maria Longworth Nichols, founder of the Rookwood Pottery, this example is one of six “Aladdin” vases documented in the pottery’s “shape book.” This vase is physical evidence of the competitive relationship between Nichols and M. Louise McLaughlin (1847–1939), the other pioneering force in Cincinnati at the time, for McLaughlin also made a monumental vase which she called the “Ali Baba” vase, a
version of which is displayed in the McKim, Mead and White Stair Hall (gallery 741). The raised slip decoration on the Aladdin Vase is characteristic of Rookwood’s early decorative work in both technique and style. Referencing recognizable Japanese sources, one side features a fan depicting an asymmetrical landscape of a frog and snail among the grases, while the other side is decorated with marine creatures in the Japanese grotesque style: ray and carp, crab, eels, and turtles in high relief are captured within a gilt mesh net. The distinctive Japanese-inspired motifs relate closely to the designs embellishing metalwork of the same period, as seen on the examples on view in the Silver of the Aesthetic Movement case (case 30).