Annetta Johnson Saint-Gaudens (American, 1869-1943), Small Art Pottery Vase with Children's Cameos

1923, earthenware vase in glossy iridescent cream glaze, featuring unglazed bas-relief children's cameo medallions to each side, inscribed with initials "AJSG / Candler / NC / 1923" to underside.

5 x 5 1/2 in.

American sculptor Annetta Johnson Saint-Gaudens is known for her figural works, often with a Classical theme, in variety of media including clay, bronze, and stone. Born near Flint, Ohio, Annetta studied at the Columbus Art School in Ohio and at the Art Students League in New York (1892-1894) under artists John Twachtman (1853-1902) and Augustus Saint-Gaudens (1848-1907). Augustus asked her join his studio in 1894 where she assisted in various commissions alongside Augustus' brother (her future husband), Louis Saint-Gaudens. The couple eventually moved to the flourishing artist colony in Cornish, New Hampshire in 1902. During this time, she completed both her own works and commissions alongside Louis.

Annetta was a member of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union and the Equal Suffrage League in Cornish. She was awarded the McMillin Prize by the Association of Women Painters and Sculptors of New York City in 1913, and received an honorable mention at the Panama–Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco in 1915. In 1917, twenty pieces of her work were shown in a joint exhibition with her husband at the City Art Museum of Saint Louis.

Before she eventually moved to California and started teaching art in public schools there, she appears to have spent time in North Carolina. She likely made this vase while visiting her friend Oscar Louis Bachelder (1852-1935), founder of Omar Khayyam Pottery in Candler, NC. She gifted him a bust of the namesake of Bachelder's pottery: Persian mathematician, astronomer, philosopher, and poet Omar Khayyam. It was displayed over the entrance of the pottery until Bachelder's death in 1935.

Toned glaze crazing to whole; otherwise good estate condition.