Two Small Vessels for Rorstrand, Including Nylund and Bjerke-Petersen

Lot Details & Additional Photographs

Sweden, to include a 1951 flintware Fasett model 2 bowl with glossy purple glaze designed by Vilhelm Bjerke-Petersen (Danish, 1909-1957), model number and partially legible company cipher to underside (2 1/2 x 3 3/8 in.); and a 1940s chamotte stoneware cup with a glossy turquoise glaze, by Gunnar Nylund (Danish, 1904-1997) and stamped "NYLUND/ RÖRSTRAND/ LIDKÖPING/ HANDDREJAD" to underside (3 x 3 in.).

Vilhelm Bjerke-Petersen was a Danish painter and art theorist. He was the son of the art historian Carl V. Petersen and one of the pioneers of abstract and Surrealist art in Denmark. He studied at Harald Giersing's painting school and at the Academy of Fine Arts in Oslo from 1927-1929. A stay at the Bauhaus school in Dessau from 1930-1931 with Wassily Kandinsky and Paul Klee as teachers proved fundamental to his theoretical and visual artistic work.

Bjerke-Petersen was concerned with the integration of art into a larger social context; thus, he carried out a number of decorative projects including those for Birkerød State School, Højdevangens School in Copenhagen with Elsa Thoresen, and the city library and sports hall in Halmstad, Sweden. He also experimented with industrial design, worked as a critic, debater and poet, and founded the Moderna konstskolan in Stockholm in 1948.

Good overall estate condition; small firing nick to underside of vase; a few small glaze flakes to rim and base of cup.