Style Other / Ref.10552

Julia ZSOLNAY (1856–1950) - Unique pair of Japanese-inspired plates

This magnificent pair of Japanese-inspired plates is a perfectly unique example in the production of the famous Zsolnay Factory. Remarkable objects for two reasons, because the Zsolnay ceramics of Japanese inspiration on the one hand and the representation of characters on the other hand are rather rare. Moreover, these objects are original prototypes, carefully decorated by Julia Zsolnay, of a quite superior quality compared to the  plates made after these models. They are therefore unique objects, all the more surprising in the usual production of geometric or floral decorations, in a well known factory and of considerable importance.

This historical Hungarian factory, founded in 1851 by Miklós Zsolnay and directed by his son Vilmos in 1863, shone at the World's Fairs of 1873 in Vienna and of 1878 in Paris, where it received a Grand Prix. Thus, from the 1870s to the Great War, the factory in the small town of Pécs expanded considerably and became the largest enterprise in Austria-Hungary.
Julia Zsolnay, daughter of Vilmos, is the particularly gifted author of these two plates’ decoration. Accompanying the rise of the family business, her participation in it was important as a decorator, author of a typical ‘Zsolnay style’. The Zsolnay ceramics thus offer a range of ceramics decorated with traditional Hungarian motifs, but they also embrace a certain Orientalism. Julia Zsolnay relies on the traditional styles of great civilizations of the world, and thus produces Persian, Anatolian, but also Renaissance decorations.
Hence, several plates at the Museum of Applied Arts in Budapest reveal the artist's passion for the geometric and floral decors of the Orient.

The Japanese motifs are among the rarest of the artist’s, but the same museum shows an interesting piece of 1885, a pair of plates decorated with roosters. It also holds a sugar bowl decorated with bamboo and flowers. These two examples, isolated in the extensive collection of Zsolnay ceramics of the Budapest Museum, bear witness to a certain Japanese production between 1880 and 1887.
The art of Japan has in fact had an increasing impact at each World Fair, where creators from all over the world could meet, especially from the 1870s onwards, where the term of Japonism appears.  Julia Zsolnay certainly participated in the 1873 and 1878 World Fairs with the factory, and saw Japanese porcelains and prints.
 In the years 1890 to 1910, the factory concentrated on its participation in the Secession, and produced a host of Art Nouveau objects that remain emblematic of the factory. Julia Zsolnay, however, returned to Japan in the interwar period, when the 1900s were out of fashion. A few beautiful vases from the years 1926-1927 confirm the particular sensitivity of Julia Zsolnay towards the refinement of Japanese aesthetics.
On the other hand, the human figure is rare in the decorations by Julia Zsolnay, although she is here proving herself very gifted at it.

The artist deploys here her great talent as draftsman and painter, which she develops in parallel to her work as decorator of faience. Julia Zsolnay is indeed a gifted painter who, like many women artists of the nineteenth century, is encouraged to devote herself to the meticulousness of porcelain painting, to which it is true that she excels. Some oils on canvas reveal the vigor and expressiveness of her painting, especially the portrait of her father.

For this pair of plates, Julia Zsolnay has for once given free rein to her talent for human figures, by describing with delicacy the soft curves of the young women’s arms. She has also played on several techniques of painting on porcelain, showing the culmination of her skill as a decorator to serve a real work of art. The painting is sometimes controlled, subordinate to the drawing as on the tunic with floral motifs, sown with white peas, and sometimes deposited on spots that melt in neighboring tones, as on the scarf tied around the hips and the ribbon in the hair. Thanks to this variation, Zsolnay makes a painting that is both precise and aerated, with an exquisite grace.

The correspondence between the two plates, one at sunrise and the other at dusk, is a poetic step that goes far beyond her usual ornaments.

The peculiar delicacy of her line is allied here with a great sense of composition, which give each detail a particular beauty. Julia Zsolnay, who is sensitive to shapes, has left no monotony in the treatment of waves or sky. Each fish enclosed in the net, each pattern pleated on the tunic, is visible. In this work, she expresses her own aesthetic sensibility and combines her two talents, the decoration of faience and the art of painting.

These very beautifully crafted prototypes indicate on the back the details of the paintings used for their reproduction. The Gyugyi collection of the Zsolnay Museum holds a plate painted after the original model of Julia Zsolnay that we present today. The plate made after the prototype do not have a design as well made as the originals, for the personal subtlety of the artist can not be reproduced.

In the Belle Epoque, the artist was married to the Art Nouveau architect Tadé Sikorski, who became the esthetic designer of the factory. Under his direction, the Zsolnay Factory produces a large number of ceramics in the spirit of this international revival, for which it received awards at all the World Fairs between 1900 and 1910. Zsolnay ceramics also conquered the public space by providing coverings to the architect Odön Lechner, inscribing for ever the name of the factory in History.