Lucie Rie - Design London Thursday, May 2, 2024 | Phillips
  • Provenance

    Cyril Frankel
    Private collection

  • Literature

    Margot Coatts, ed., Lucie Rie & Hans Coper: Potters in Parallel, exh. cat., Barbican Art Gallery, London, 1997, p. 57
    Tony Birks, Lucie Rie, Catrine, 2009, p. 115

  • Artist Biography

    Lucie Rie

    Austrian • 1902 - 1995

    Dame Lucie Rie studied under Michael Powolny at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Vienna before immigrating to London in 1938. In London she started out making buttons for the fashion industry before producing austere, sparsely decorated tableware that caught the attention of modernist interior decorators. Eventually she hit her stride with the pitch-perfect footed bowls and flared vases for which she is best-known today. She worked in porcelain and stoneware, applying glaze directly to the unfired body and firing only once. She limited decoration to incised lines, subtle spirals and golden manganese lips, allowing the beauty of her thin-walled vessels to shine through. In contrast with the rustic pots of English ceramicist Bernard Leach, who is considered an heir to the Arts and Crafts movement, collectors and scholars revere Rie for creating pottery that was in dialogue with the design and architecture of European Modernism.

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PROPERTY FORMERLY IN THE COLLECTION OF CYRIL FRANKEL

87

Lidded coffee pot and milk jug

circa 1955
Stoneware, the exterior with a manganese glaze and sgraffito design, the interior with white glaze.
Lidded coffee pot: 19.6 x 21.5 x 12.5 cm (7 3/4 x 8 1/2 x 4 7/8 in.)
Milk jug: 13.7 x 16.5 x 9.4 cm (5 3/8 x 6 1/2 x 3 3/4 in.)

Underside of each impressed with artist's seal.

Estimate
£2,000 - 3,000 ‡♠

Sold for £3,556

Contact Specialist

Antonia King
Head of Sale, Design
+44 20 7901 7944
Antonia.King@phillips.com
 

Design

London Auction 2 May 2024