34. Adding a little colour

The previous two vases were influenced by working with a black background. By contrast, this next vase is keen to use colour to attract attention. In fact, it is the most determined attempt yet to use reflective foil to catch the eye.

This vase has six faces, with three colours each repeated twice. One is such a dark brown it is almost invisible, but the others are the bright blue and purple you see above and below.

The technique here is very neat and regular with (presumably) foil squares behind coloured transparent enamel. Note also that there is an additional area of bright focus with amber ‘eyes’ higher on the vase (on the right of the large spiral) but it is scarcely seen against the brighter blue and purple.

ref 34.5

The image above also shows the thicker wire which is an important part of the decoration. In fact there is a stark contrast between the large spirals (1.25 cm or more across) and the very tiny spirals (about 2 mm across). The small spirals become almost invisible in fact as the large spirals draw the attention.

Turning to the other prominent part of the decoration, the roundels. These can be seen in the context of roundels from other vases and korous in this website’s roundel imagebank.

An earlier vase had a similar pattern (object 2) with small circles surrounding a simple internal pattern. That vase also used semicircular forms on the upper border. It also had blue and purple transparent enamel over little squares of reflective foil. Perhaps the two vases came from the same workshop.

Object 34. Vase height 12.5 cm weight 165 gm.

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