Lucie Rie

Dame Lucie Rie emigrated from Vienna in 1938 and settled in London, England where over the following four decades she became a principal figure in the burgeoning postwar studio pottery movement. Born in 1902, Rie developed the foundations of her ceramic techniques while attending the Vienna School of Applied Arts in the 1920s. Influenced by the Wiener Werkstätte, her ceramics were modernist, refined and minimal. Before emigrating to London due to the annexation of Austria into Nazi Germany, Rie had established herself on the international stage, winning medals and acclaim from her peers, through exhibitions such as the 1925 International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts and the International Exposition of Art and Technology in 1937, both in Paris. It was after WWII, in London, where Rie really flourished and her work challenged the male-dominated postwar world of studio craft.

The present two Footed Bowls reflect Rie’s masterful combination of modernist aesthetic and innovative decorative techniques. Unlike most of her contemporaries, Rie used the process of raw glazing where she would layer multiple glazes over a dried vessel before firing only once. Often in combination with the technique of sgraffito, the act of scratching or incising hardened clay, she was able to create intricate patterns that were beautiful and organic. The present example is a true masterpiece, with a mesmerizingly beautiful emerald green glaze combined with Rie’s signature technique of coating the rim of the vessel with shiny manganese glaze that is fired to appear as though it remains liquid and is dripping.

In the previous lot, Rie combined a unique upright form with alternating horizontal bands of manganese glazing and sgraffito, the act of scratching or incising hardened clay. The vessel’s manganese glaze shimmers a rich golden hue, highlighting each band of geometric sgraffito which cuts through a more subdued reddish umber glaze to expose the clay underneath. The combination of intricate, organic, hand-made decorative elements with the refined, delicate and modernist lines of this vessel showcase the desirable qualities that made Rie’s work stand out from her studio pottery movement contemporaries.