1930s Van Briggle Pottery Art Nouveau Chinese Inspired Vase. Pretty red color over the surface of the baluster shape, with curling raised line designs painted a rich blue. Marked on bottom with the A-frame-window-like symbol of the company, as well as the words "Van Briggle, Colo. Spgs." 

Condition: Flea bite on front (white spec) but overall good. 

Size: 6 x 6 x 12 in. 

Born to artistic parents in 1869, Artus Van Briggle began his artistic career at 17 in Cincinnati, Ohio, where he decorated china dolls at the Arnold Fairyland Doll Store while attending art studies at the Cincinnati Art School. After a stint at Avon Pottery he took a job at Rookwood Pottery, where he excelled at hand-painting designs. His skill and talent were recognized by Rookwood founder Maria Storer, who sent him to France to study art at the Académie Julian in Paris. There he became infatuated with an early matte glaze from the Chinese Ming Dynasty and met his future wife, fellow American art student Anne Lawrence Gregory. Finishing their Paris studies in 1896, they returned to America, where Artus resumed his work at Rookwood and also started sculpting and experimented with recreating lost Ming Dynasty glazes. In 1899, struggling with health issues due to tuberculosis, Artus left Rookwood and moved to the drier air of Colorado Springs, Colorado. Artus opened Van Briggle Pottery in 1901 and Anne took a position as a high school art teacher in Colorado Springs. In 1902 Anne and Artus were married, and she joined the pottery company as well. Late 1902 brought Artus awards for his glazes and Art Nouveau designs from the Paris Salon, and the following year he was appointed First Director of the Department of Art and Design at Colorado College. A display at the 1904 Centennial Exhibit in St. Louis won Van Briggle more awards and greater international fame, and from that moment onward Van Briggle Pottery had a significant impact on the Art Nouveau movement in the United States, with his pottery now considered foundational to American Art Pottery from its inception all the way through today. Tragically, Artus died from tuberculosis in July of 1904 at the age of 35, and Anne continued to use the forms created by him while adding more designs of her own. These won Artus posthumous awards at the Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition and the American Arts and Crafts Exhibition in Boston the following year. In 1907 Anne and city founder William Jackson Palmer began construction on a new pottery building on Uintah Street. The Van Briggle Memorial Pottery, designed by Dutch architect Nicholas Van den Arend, was opened in 1908 and still stands today as a historic landmark noted for its architecture and use of ceramics in the facade. Anne leased the pottery in 1912 to Edmund deForest Curtis, who rebuilt the entire company when a fire gutted the interior but left the brick shell and kilns intact in 1919. Anne sold the company in 1922 to Lewis Brothers before moving to Denver to concentrate on painting until her death in 1929. The pottery fell under financial hardships after the 1935 Flood and was sold at sheriff's auction to Curtis. World War II took its toll on resources, and the building of a freeway through the city led to another change of location to a facility called the Midland Plant in 1953. However, through all of it the company continued functioning, and longtime employee Kenneth Stevenson took majority control in 1969. Stevenson died in 1990, leaving the pottery to his wife Bertha and their son Craig, who remained Van Briggle’s chief designer until the ultimate demise of the company in 2012. At the time of its closure it was the oldest continuously operating art pottery in the United States, with thousands of pieces now held in museums and private collections, and an undisputed legend of the American Art Pottery Movement.

Flea bite on front (white spec) but overall good.