Vase
Designer Jean Dunand French, born Switzerland
Not on view
This gourd-shaped vase is a masterful example of traditional metalworking. Dunand excelled at the craft of dinanderie—a term derived from Dinant, a town near Liège, Belgium, where hand-worked metalwares had been produced since the Middle Ages. The process consists of raising a form from a thin, flat sheet of metal (usually copper) by hammering over shaped molds in a spiral pattern starting at the center of the sheet. Occasional reheating of the object is necessary to prevent the metal from becoming too brittle and fracturing during the process.
A sulphuric acid bath and rapid beating of the surface with a flat-headed mallet eliminates visible hammer marks from a finished piece. In this case, the copper body was embellished with inlaid silver decoration.
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