Product Description
Egide Rombaux (attr.) Belgian Art Nouveau “Nymph and Iris” sculpture c.1900
EGIDE ROMBAUX attr. (1865-1942) Belgium
Nymph with Iris Blossoms c.1900
Finely hand carved ivory in the form of a full figure nymph with an iris blossom and buds, blue agate base with gilt bronze mounts
For more information see: Art Nouveau and Art Deco Lighting, Alastair Duncan (New York: Simon & Schuster, Publishers, 1978)
H: 9 1/2″
Price: 9,750
Egide Rombaux, born 1865 in Brussels, was the son of the sculptor Félix Rombaux and student of Charles van der Strappen and Joseph Lambeaux. Rombaux was one of the more eminent of the Belgian School at the turn of the century; he was awarded the prestigious Prix de Rome in 1891, and subsequently became a professor at the Institut superieur des Beaux-Arts in Anvers. Sculptor and medalist, he principally did ivory groups (such as his ‘Venusberg’, displayed at the 1897 chryselephantine Tervuren exposition, and his ‘Daughter of Satan’, now at the Musée Royale des Beaux-Arts in Brussels), portrait busts and statues. He also collaborated with silversmith Franz Hoosemans on a delightful range of candelabra and tablelamps.
Egide Rombaux (attr.) Belgian Art Nouveau “Nymph and Iris” sculpture c.1900
ROSE CABAT (1914-2015) USA
“Feelie” c. 1980-85
Thin walled porcelain vessel with a silky satiny matte drip glaze
Signed: incised CABAT on bottom
For more information on Rose Cabat see: Rose Erni Cabat Retrospective 1936-1986 (Tuscon, AZ: Tuscon Museum of Art, 1986)
H: 4 3/4″
Price: $2,500
Rose Cabat is an American studio ceramicist living in Tucson. Considered one of the most important ceramic artists of the Mid-century Modernist movement, Cabat is best known for her innovative glazes on small porcelain pots called “feelies” which she developed in the 1960s. Her organic forms often resemble the shape of onions and figs, and her glazes range from organic to jewel tones. Cabat was born in 1914 in the Bronx, New York, began to work in ceramics in the late 1930′s, and moved to Arizona in 1942, where she continued to make innovative ceramics.
Feelies:
Feelies are described as onion, fig, cucumber, and saucer-shaped ceramic vases terminating in an upward closed neck. Bruce Block, an avid collector, has described them as sensual and tactile with a very specific unforgettable texture, spiritual seeming to contain a type of energy. Rose Cabat had developed a silky satiny glaze, and it wasn’t until around 1960 that she had hit upon the first of the appropriate form, svelte and sleek to match the glaze. She exclaimed, “Now this one’s a feelie.”, coining the term. Upon developing the new glazes, she felt that she needed new forms to apply the glazes to, different from what she made before, “craft fair” style coiled heads and wind bells. She is quoted as saying, “The old things did not look good … I wanted simpler shapes that went with the glazes.”They are typically globular in shape, tightening down to a minuscule neck glazed to a satin surface. The tactile experience is most important. The nature of the neck is such that it is closed, so narrow that it cannot hold anything. Cabat would reply when asked why the necks of her feelies are so narrow, “A vase can hold weeds or flowers, but can’t it just be a spot of beauty?”
Grosfeld House New York
Lucite stool circa 1940.
Cylindrical lucite base stool with gold lucite wrap like connecting elements, silk upholstery.
H: 16 1/4″ x W: 13 1/2″ x D: 16 1/2″
Grosfeld House Furniture Company manufactured some iconic designs of the twentieth century. Some of the great designers that work for the company were Vladimir Kagan and Lorin Jackson. They produced some of the earliest chairs using Lucite starting in the 1930’s and through the Post War Era.