Material: Ceramic
Height: 23 cm, Width: 10,5 cm , Depth: 7,5 cm
Nicely packed in a gift box
Design: Parastone Ateliers for John Beswick
Museum vase based on a work by Alphonse Mucha (1860-1939)
Reverie (1897)
Young Alphonse Mucha had a beautiful singing voice which enabled him to earn his own secondary school fees in the Moravian capital Brno. However, drawing continued to be his great passion and - aged 19 - he left for Vienna where we worked as an apprentice draughtsman for a studio which designed and decorated theatre scenery.
Upon his return to Moravia (in what is currently Czech Republic) his talent was spotted by the wealthy Count Karl Khuen-Belasi, who enabled him to study at the Aademie der Bildenden Künste Munich.
Mucha continued his studies in Paris, the Mecca of the art at the time. He made extra money drawing illustrations for magazines and advertisements. Quite unexpectedly this proved to be his big break. Whilst visiting a printing shop, a poster proved to have to be designed on the spot for the play 'Gismonda' starring the legendary Sarah Bernard. A few weeks later, Paris was covered in posters and they were stolen en masse. Mucha instantly became the most in demand illustrator of the Belle Epoque.
The artist was not entirely happy with the rapid triumph of Art Nouveau in the decorative arts. He kept emphasising that his art followed his Slavic soul, not some fashionable trend. His inspirations were old religious art, symbolism and Japanese prints with their stylised lines and clear cut structure which had been rediscovered in the 19th Century.