Bowl

Adelaide Alsop Robineau

1917 · Porcelain · Modern and Contemporary Art

Robineau's success with porcelain making paralleled her mastery of increasingly complex decorative techniques. She was a skilled porcelain carver, inciser, and exciser, and her designs were often inspired by Asian, Egyptian, Native and South American art. This bowl, with a spiraling serpent at its center and carved crouching Mayan figures and serpents on its legs, demonstrates her superb carving. The contrasting pale, carved interior, a coiled serpent depicted with concentric circles of diamond-shaped scales in varicolored glazes, alleviates the heaviness of the strong sober form with the monochromatic exterior.

Artist

Adelaide Alsop Robineau

Date

1917

Medium

Porcelain

Department

Modern and Contemporary Art

Credit line

Purchase, Edward C. Moore Jr. Gift, 1923