French Stoneware Vase

This French stoneware vase by Claude Gaget was made at La Borne in the 1970s. Its front carries a landscape of mountains under a setting sun.

The vase has a flattened almond-shaped section and a body that tapers towards an irregular, rock-like rim. On the front, a pale grey-blue glaze flecked with sandy brown forms the sky, with the sun drawn as an incised circle; below it, a band of glossy dark brown mountains rises from a base of textured brown stoneware. The back is left in a warm, rough brown finish that shows a very original work on the material, with the brutalist inspiration typical of La Borne.

It is the work of Claude Gaget, one of the great ceramists of La Borne. Born in 1948, he studied science in Paris before his interest in pottery led him to Pierre Mestre, in whose workshop he began to work with clay. He arrived in La Borne in 1973, and since 1974 he has shared his life with the ceramist Claudine Monchaussé. Passionate about old stoneware, he makes utilitarian pieces and sculpted themes such as trees, chairs, landscapes and portraits, covered with engobes and fired in a wood kiln. His universe is imaginative and poetic.

A beautiful piece of French studio stoneware.