Product Description
Salvatore Meli Important large scale Italian Sculpture / Ewer 1952

SALVATORE MELI (b. 1929) Italy
Important Sculpture / Ewer 1952
Glazed terra cotta, brown and dark green with white scraffito decoration, original stepped and angular wood base.
Signed: Meli 1952 Roma
For more info on Meli see: Design 1935-1965, What Modern was, ed. Martin Eidelberg (New York: Harry Abrams, 1991) p. 237.
Salvatore Meli belongs to that initial group of artists, including Guido Gambone and Lucio Fontana among others, who elevated Italian ceramics to a fine art during the post-war period. Meli conceived this vessel, first on paper, then by laboriously constructing the body in clay, coil by coil, to achieve the richly textured and dynamic form; the incised and painted decoration is in concert with the organic shape. The massive scale of this work defies function as a ewer but was created as a sculptural object. The original wooden base recalls Italian futurist sculpture forms of the early twentieth century.
H (with base): 23 1/2” x W: 13” x D: 9.5”
H (without base): 19 1/8”
Price: $27,500
Salvatore Meli Important large scale Italian Sculpture / Ewer 1952
FRED BORCHERDT
Abstract sculpture c. 1970
Lacquered red wood on an orange plexiglass base
ANDRE VINCENT BECQUEREL (1893-1981) France
Arabian Horse sculpture c. 1930
Bronze with overall rich green/brown patina with intricate sculpting and details, black Belgian marble plinth base
Signed: A. Becquerel (inscribed in the bronze)
H: 12” x W: 21” x D: 6”
Price: $27,500
Andre Vincent Becquerel was born in St. Andre-Farivilliers. He studied at the l’Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris under Hector Lemaire and Prosper Lecourtier. He specialized in fine animal sculpture and regularly exhibited at the Salon des Artistes Francais from 1914 to 1922. Becquerel worked for the Editeur Parisiens Edmond Etling in Paris and created a monumental sculpture in patinated plaster for the “Pavillon international” at the Exposition Internationale in Paris in 1937.
RAYMOND BARGER (1906-2001) USA
Sculpture c. 1955
Polychrome contoured wood of interlocking circular forms in white, blue and pink on a bronze base.
Signed: RB (artist initials), USA, Z0I
H: 8 1/2” x L: 12 ¾” x D: 8
Price: $5,800
Raymond Granville Barger was a sculptor working in metal, plastelin, and bronze among other materials. Barger was educated at Carnegie Institute of Technology and Yale University School of Fine Art. He received a Winchester Fellowship from Yale, and a special fellowship from the American Academy in Rome. Barger moved to California, where he died in 2001.
FLAVIO POLI (1900-1984) Italy
SEGUSO VETRI D’ARTE Italy
Vase c. 1950’s
Blue and clear Murano glass
H: 10″ x D: 3″ x W: 4 1/2″
Price: $1,850
Designer, businessman, ceramic artist. Born in Chioggia, he attended the Istituto d’Arte di Venezia and began work as a designer in ceramics. in 1929 he switched to glass and for Libero Vitali’s I.V.A.M. he designed animals, splendid Novecento-style nude figures in massiccio glass, as well as bowls and urns with figures resting on the inside, on lids or as handles. He subsequently collaborated with the Compagnia di Venezia e Murano, with the furnace of Mario and Lino Nason and with the engraver Gino Francesconi. in 1934 he accepted the artistic direction of Barovier, Seguso & Ferro, later to become Seguso Vetri d’Arte, and became partner three years later. Together with the master of the principal team Archimede Seguso, Poli was the author of grandiose lighting installations, of corroded vessels, of sculptures in bulicante glass, of animals in massiccio glass shaped while hot, productions which represented a milestone in the development of Murano glass. At the height of his artistic maturity, in the years between 1950 and 1960 he designed a series of sommerso glass pieces in a Nordic style, essential forms and sharp cold colors, which were awarded prestigious prizes (Compasso d’Oro). After leaving Seguso in 1963, between 1964 and 1966 he organized the artistic glass division at the Societˆ Veneziana di Conterie e Cristallerie.