Vase

The vase was made at the maiolica manufactory in Nieborów. The factory, called the ‘Faience and Tile Stove Factory’, was founded by Prince Michał Piotr Radziwiłł on the premises of his residence in 1881. The director of the factory was Stanislaw Thiele, an experienced ceramic artist, who had previously worked at the faience factory in Nevers, France. The manufactory in Nieborów produced a variety of decorative and utilitarian items: vases, jugs, cache-pôt pots, jardinieres, wall-hanging plates, toiletries, hanging lamps, wall tiles; its speciality was cooker tiles. The eclectic products were in line with historicising trends in European ceramics of the second half of the 19th century. The forms and ornamentation were based on Italian and French majolica and Dutch faience. Old style forms were often combined with Polish painting decorations. The wares were also decorated with mythological scenes. The Castle Museum in Łańcut possesses eleven decorative maiolica, including vases, jardiniers, cache-pôt. Most of them come from 1882-1886 and are signed with the binded monogram MPR (Michał Piotr Radziwiłł) under the ducal mitre, and sometimes with the painter-decorator's initials. The afore-mentioned vase has a spherical body on a foot and a round foot, passing into a neck with a turned-up lip. The handles have the shape of twisted snakes. The decoration on the white-yellow background is yellow, green, blue, rust and black (contours). On the belly, there is depictions of mythological figures. On the one hand, Jupiter as a bearded old man in a flowing robe is driving a chariot drawn by a pair of eagles. He holds a thunderbolt in his raised right hand. On the other side of the abdomen, Saturn is similarly depicted with a scythe, his chariot drawn by a pair of winged serpents. Such depictions of Jupiter and Saturn in chariots were repeated on vases produced in Nieborów (cf. Łańcut vases inv. no. S. 11848 MŁ, S. 9702 MŁ). Barbara Trojnar