Antique Pewter Vase, Art Nouveau Organic Form with Botanical Relief — France, circa 1900

The Art Nouveau vase, at its most confident, abandoned the balanced silhouette entirely and let the form itself become a plant — swelling, curving, weighted asymmetrically the way a living stem grows rather than the way a lathe turns. Pewter, soft and forgiving to work, was one of the favoured materials for this kind of sculptural vase making around 1900, its low melting point allowing designers to cast forms that would have been prohibitively difficult in bronze or silver, and its matte grey surface giving the organic modelling a quiet, unpolished authority.

This vase is French, circa 1900, in pewter, its form entirely unconventional: a bulbous, asymmetric base swelling generously to one side before narrowing through a long, sinuous neck to a plain rim — the profile reading less like a vessel with a foot than like a bulb with a shoot rising from it. Across the widest part of the body, clusters of leaves and rounded seed pods or buds are modelled in high relief, the leaves veined and slightly curling at their edges, the buds smooth and full — the vegetal vocabulary of Art Nouveau at its most literal, the vase itself imagined as something that has grown rather than been thrown or cast in a conventional shape. Note how the relief decoration is concentrated entirely at the base, leaving the long neck bare and undecorated — the compositional restraint that lets the sculptural weight sit where the eye expects it, at the bottom, while the neck rises free and uncluttered above.

The vase has come through in very good condition, the pewter sound throughout and the relief modelling crisp and undamaged. It stands well as a single-stem bud vase or simply as a small sculptural object on a shelf or console.

It arrives professionally packed and fully insured. All duties and import charges are our responsibility — you pay nothing beyond the listed price. Returns are accepted within 30 days.

DETAILS:
Size: Height 28 cm (11 in) · Base diameter 16 cm (6.3 in)
Material: pewter
Style/Period: French Art Nouveau, circa 1900
Shipping: professionally packed, fully insured, worldwide — all import duties paid by us, nothing to settle on delivery
Condition: very good; pewter sound throughout; relief modelling crisp and undamaged
Returns: accepted within 30 days

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