Vintage Floral Vase. Inscribed on base. 

Size: 8 x 8 x  12 1/2 in. 

#86 #2418 . 

A vase is an open container, and one of the earliest known formed shapes created by mankind. Modern vases can be made from a number of materials, such as ceramics, glass, non-rusting metals, such as aluminum, brass, bronze, or stainless steel. After the potter’s wheel was invented in Mesopotamia in the 4th Millennium BC, this method of shaping bowls, vases, and other vessels spread across Eurasia and Africa, but remained unknown in the New World until the arrival of Eruropeans. However, even in prehistoric times vessels used as vases were crafted from wood or stone, with some surviving pieces dating back over 30,000 years found in excavations at Chiquihuite Cave in Mexico. Vases are often decorated, and primarily used to hold cut flowers, coming in many shapes and sizes to support whatever type of flower is being kept in place. Generally, the base may be bulbous, flat, carinate, or even balanced on smaller feet. The body forms the main portion of the piece. Some vases have a shoulder, where the body curves inward, a neck, which gives height, and a lip, where the vase flares back out at the top. Some vases are also given handles, depending on the use and placement of it. In the pottery of Ancient Greece “vase-painting” is the traditional term covering the famous fine painted pottery, usually with many figures in scenes from Greek mythology. Long-lasting forms that still influence vase manufacturing today include the amphora, krater, olpe, and meiping, with modern shapes including the bottle, gourd, pitcher, urn, and flower brick, among others.

Although there are numbers on the bottom of this vase, there is no stamp to indicate the manufacturer, making it possible it was handmade by an independent artisan, and the style, a mixture of Art Nouveau floral themes and Art Deco geometric patterns, suggests it comes from Europe in the early part of the 20th Century.