1894

"Folie" or "Jester" Vase

This extravagant vase is named for the the jester who plays the main role in its design. It was decorated by Marc-Louis-Emmanuel Solon in gold and thin layers of transparent white slip known as pâte-sur-pâte (paste on paste), a time-consuming technique that he had brought to England’s Minton factory when he emigrated from France in 1870. Pâte-sur-pâte was the most admired porcelain decoration of the late nineteenth century in Europe and the United States, and Solon its foremost practitioner. This vase was considered the best "specimen" of its kind in the United States by William Platt Pepper, then museum director, and purchased by the museum in 1898 from the Philadelphia retailer Bailey, Banks & Biddle.