Conversation Piece Auction of unique Dutch contemporary ceramics based on Dutch old master paintings to benefit the Wallace

Collection

Thursday, 19th April 2012 Hertford House, Manchester Square, London Viewing Sunday, 25th MarchThursday, 29th March Bonhams, 101 New Bond Street, London W1S 1SR In aid of the Wallace Collection www.wallacecollection.org On the occasion of the official re-opening of the Dutch Galleries / supported by Bonhams

Bids & enquiries Amy Randall at the Wallace Collection +44 (0)20 7563-9567 amy.randall@wallacecollection.org To bid via the internet visit www.bonhams.com, from Sunday, 25th March

Marina De Caro Floating Vase

Two elements, one signed W c.p./mdc 1:1 Stoneware, metal and brooms, 2012 80 x 30 x 23 cm / 31.5 x 11.8 x 9 in Estimate 3,000 / 3,600 / US$4,700

This vase consists of two separate elements, its top supported by wooden brooms on both sides. It is shown here with owers; through the gap between the parts, the water in the vase and the stems of the owers are visible.

Marina De Caro Floating Vase

I worked with The Listening Housewife by Nicolaes Maes. I usually try to make my own interpretation of the image, to catch its mood and its translation in our contemporary, everyday life. I did try not to get involved with the moral meaning of the picture. I like very much the portraits capricious body position; not worried, not disappointed, not sacred, with a jar in her hand. I liked to imagine, what did she have in her jar, maybe a strange drench, something we will never know. I took the idea of a mysterious housewife, a powerful housewife, much more intelligent than we can imagine. So with the brooms, I went into the contemporary housewifes world. The oating vase you will never know it from a mysterious housewife.

The Listening Housewife

Drawing by Marina De Caro

Krijn Christiaansen Sea Piece

Thirty porcelain elements, one candle signed W c.p./kc 1:1 Porcelain, paraffin wax, 2012 Circa 55 x 50 x 45 cm / 22 x 20 x 18 in Estimate 1,000 / 1,200 / US$1,600

This work consists of thirty miniaturised coastal defence elements in various shades of grey porcelain, and a handmade candle in the shape of a lighthouse. When burnt, the melting parafn wax would fuse the elements together.

Krijn Christiaansen Sea Piece

I worked around The Burning of the Andrew at the Battle of Scheveningen by William van de Velde the Younger, and the genre of stormy sea landscapes in general. Taking place in 1653, the Battle of Scheveningen was the deciding engagement of the First Anglo-Dutch War, and was won by the English eet, leading to an immediate and total collapse of the Dutch economy. As well as having a history in naval warfare based on overseas trade and colonisation, the Dutch have always been involved in a constant ght against the water. When I discussed sea landscapes with an art historian, she mentioned that it is common knowledge among art dealers that male buyers prefer paintings of rough seasrepresenting changewhereas women prefer calm seas representing stability. Originally, a sea landscape one might hang was also read as a tongue-in-cheek statement by its owner on his own matrimonial life, with stormy weather and battle implying the obvious. This work consists of a pile of so-called tetra podselements used in contemporary coastal managementand a lighthouse candle. When burnt, the melting parafn wax would glue the separate elements together.

The burning of the Andrew

Coastal management

Goele Dewanckel The Virtuous Woman

Signed W c.p./gd 1:1 Stoneware, 2012 60 x 37 x 50 cm / 23.6 x 14.6 x 19.7 in Estimate 1,200 / 1,500 / US$1,900

This geometrically shaped vase was glazed and scratched by hand, to resemble an abstract female gure with a large collar and with hands open in a welcoming gesture. The inside of the object is bright red, and when looking into it, the opening is revealed to be the womans gaping mouth.

Goele Dewanckel The Virtuous Woman

At rst glance, visual artist, graphic designer and illustrator Goele Dewanckels interpretation of The Virtuous Woman by Nicolaes Maes seems to be as innocent as the title promises: it is a vase, a symbol of homely life, designed to display natures treasures. However, on closer inspection the object seems to be off. It is oddly angular and its centre of gravity appears to be shifted dangerously to one side, making it seem as if the vase might topple as soon as owers would be put in. The drawing in glaze cleverly transforms the object into the woman from the painting, but again the depiction of virtue is skewed. Why is she so angular? Is her top-heaviness meant to suggest that she has large breasts? The womans head is painted on the inside of the vases rim, which becomes her large collar. The opening of the vase is suggestive of a mouth, stretched wide to receive the owers, or insinuating oral sex. Or is this woman actually screaming in desperation, like a sister to Edvard Munchs most famous painting? Posing as a virtuous woman, this object speaks of the one-dimensionality of human roles and symbols and adds an even more ambiguous undertone to Maes painting, than it already had.

Sketch by Goele Dewanckel

The virtuous Woman, detail

Joris Landman Ka-boom!!!! Flowers!

Signed W c.p./jl 1:1 Stoneware, 2012 80 x 70 x 28 cm / 31.5 x 27.6 x 11 in Estimate 2,500 / 3,000 / US$3,900

This vase, in the shape of a volcano, is made of pitch-black clay erupting in brightly multi-coloured glaze lava ows. When in use, the owers it contains resemble smoke bellowing out of its crater.

Joris Landman Ka-boom!!!! Flowers!

Thinking about the Dutch Galleries, I was inspired by the idea that the Golden Age was a period in Dutch history of such great advancement in trade, science and art; the exhilarating energy of living in a time when the world is being discovered and conquered, which is present in many of the paintings. For example, the Italianised paintings: clumsy Italian landscapes and scenes made by painters who had never actually visited Italy but had access to imported pictures. They remind me of Albrecht Drers Rhinoceros. Then there is the enthusiastic display of these advancements and their personal benets, the claiming of bragging rights for being culturedor just plain wealthyby commissioning a lavish portrait or an intricate yet unpractical object, to savour in private or to serve as a prop-based conversation opener when callers came. From these ideas came the image of a pitch-black volcano erupting in brightly multi-coloured lava ows; a sophisticated but naive and embellished representation of an awesome energy. When I started sketching, I saw that the volcano could be a vase with owers bellowing out of its crater. I had never worked with ceramics before and thought that such a design would be inherently ceramic, because it seemed that adding heat to clay until it turns to glass, is a process almost identical to volcanic eruption. To me, this work is an image of eagerness and culmination, of vacuity and overabundance, of power and ineptitude. I would request it to exclusively be used for dried bouquets of the rare owers found on Miyake-jima.

Geological map of Miyake-jima

Italianised painting

Cathelijne Montens Still Life

Three objects signed W c.p./cm 1:1 Stoneware, 2012 26 x 11 x 5 cm / 10.2 x 4.3 x 2 in 45 x 22 x 19 cm / 17.7 x 8.6 x 7.5 in 32 x 20 x 9 cm / 12.6 x 7.9 x 3.5 in Estimate 1,200 / 1,500 / US$1,900

By packing animal bodiesparrots, parakeets and pigeonsin clay, these three objects were created. In the kiln, all organic material was completely red out, leaving only the imprints of the birds. The bowls can be opened, revealing these highly detailed impressions.

Cathelijne Montens Still Life

Designer Cathelijne Montens started by looking at paintings from the Wallace Collection that incorporate dead animals, especially the still-lifes of poultry and hunting trophies by Jan Weenix, such as Dead Peacock and Game. Working with a taxidermist she used real animal bodiesparrots, parakeets and pigeonsto cast three moulds, composing still-lifes of the bodies and packing those in clay. In the kiln, all organic material was completely red out, leaving only the imprints of the birds (for this purpose a special mix of clay had to be developed). On opening them, inside the objects the impressions left by the animals are revealed in high detail; their shapes and positions, their feathers and beaks. Though it may relieve some to know that all animals used had died of natural causes, to others the process and the resulting work may still seem somewhat macabre, due to its delicate subject matter. As a whole, the work is both intimate and brutal, as death itself is also, and it evokes thoughts of presence and absence, creation and destruction, tactility and memory. Without moralising, it adds a highly sensitive and personal meaning to the concept of memento mori.

Dead Peacock and Game

Work in progress

Novak Post Light Composition

Five objects signed W c.p./n 1:1 Stoneware, 2012 18 x 18 x 42 cm / 7.1 x 7.1 x 16.5 in 19 x 19 x 20 cm / 7.5 x 7.5 x 7.9 in 18 x 18 x 27 cm / 7.1 x 7.1 x 10.6 in 16 x 16 x 25 cm / 6.3 x 6.3 x 9.8 in 29 x 29 x 3 cm / 11.4 x 11.4 x 1.2 in Estimate 2,000 / 2,400 / US$3,200

This work consists of ve hand thrown yet graphic pottery pieces placed in a still-life composition. Their shapes were taken from vessels shown in Dutch old master paintings. The striking lighta trompe loeilis glazed and painted on the objects, and refers to the clair obscur found in the paintings from which they are derived.
The Virtuous Woman by Nicolaes Maes The Deliverance of Saint Peter by David Teniers A Hermit at Prayer by Gerard Dou The Village Alchemist by Jan Steen Merrymaking in a Tavern by Jan Steen

Novak Post Light Composition

The research of graphic designers Novak (Rene Tichelaar and Eva van der Schans) into pottery represented in old master paintings from the Dutch Galleries can be described as graphic archaeology. From ve iconic scenes, Novak selected archetypical vessels, which where then translated into real, hand thrown pottery objects, as if the original props used during the painting of the ve masterpieces have been reincarnated as physical icons. The pieces were placed in a precise still-life composition and lit with a strong light source. The striking light was then permanently painted and glazed onto the objects as a means of xating the composition and turning the separate objects into a single work, seemingly frozen in time; indeed, if the objects were to be positioned differently, the lighting would no longer be correct and the work as intended would cease to exist. This analytic approach and the stylistic devices applied in this worktrompe loeil, pars pro totoand the associations it carrieslogo design, computer icons, digital three-dimensional renderingsare strongly indicative of the craft and tools of the contemporary graphic designer, and bring to mind thoughts about representation and iconography.

The Deliverance of Saint Peter, detail

Work in progress

Marina De Caro, Krijn Christiaansen, Goele Dewanckel, Joris Landman, Cathelijne Montens & Novak Lace
Stoneware, 2012 75 x 75 x 4 cm / 17.7 x 17.7 x 1.6 in Estimate 800 / 1,000 / US$1,300

This table centrepiece, which has associations with lace tablecloths, was made by having cars drive over wet clay, and then carefully cutting free the decorative pattern left by the grooves in the cars tyres.

Marina De Caro, Krijn Christiaansen, Goele Dewanckel, Joris Landman, Cathelijne Montens & Novak Lace
Ceramics can be a very slow process, very frustrating, because you always have to wait for someone to come and help you, and then for something to be dry, and then you lose your tools. Every step takes hours, maybe days, you could never do it without help. Yes, that is why we have made a work based on a simple, repetitive task, to be able to be productive while we were waiting. And to have something to do together. We had seen bits of wet clay on the parking lot, over which cars had driven, and we thought they looked like lace. Like a lace collar maybe. We really liked the idea of a status symbollike foreign cars or expensive lace but made from rough or worthless materials. We thought of the history of manual and menial labour, and of doing kitchen table crafts when there was no television yet. In the seventeenth century materials were expensive because transport was difcult, and time was cheap because thats all some people had. Thats changed. This work makes me think of a place like Volendam, where they spend all their money from the shing boats on pimping your car and buying sexy clothes.

The Laughing Cavalier, detail

Work in progress

Designers/Artists

Marina De Caro
Visual artist, Argentina www.marina-decaro.blogspot.com Marina works with drawing, sculpture and performance. Subjects include the personal and shared experience of bodily and social behaviour and norms. Presentations include Biennnale de Lyon, Art Basel and British Ceramics Biennial. Collectors include Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires, Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires, Museo de Arte Contemporneo de Rosario, Coleccin Fondo Nacional de las Artes and Zabludowicz Collection. Represented by Galera Ruth Benzacar and Galerie Vanessa Quang.

Krijn Christiaansen & Cathelijne Montens

Designers, The Netherlands www.krijnchristiaansen.nl, www.cathelijnemontens.com Krijn and Cathelijne work on research, project based and spatial design. Subjects include public space, and its intended and unintended uses. Commissioners include Dutch municipalities, Droog Design, Delft University of Technology Faculty of Aerospace Engineering. Presentations include British Ceramics Biennial, Istanbul Design Week, Japan Institute of Architecture, Centraal Museum, Stedelijk Museum and Museum Boijmans van Beuningen. Collectors include Stedelijk Museum and Droog Design. Awards include a Dutch Design Award.

Goele Dewanckel
Visual artist, graphic designer & illustrator, Belgium Goele works as a visual artist, graphic designer and illustrator, and has published fteen books for adults and children. Subjects include the multidimensionality of human roles and emotions, and their general perception. Presentations include Salon du Livre, Poem Parade Rotterdam and Centre Pompidou. Awards include international illustration awards and two times Belgian Illustration Award (Boekenpauw).

Joris Landman
Editorial & graphic designer, The Netherlands www.jorislandman.com Joris works as an editorial and graphic designer, with a focus on digital media. Subjects include the emergence and storage of meaning through man-made signs and signals. Commissioners include Centraal Museum, Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam, The Dutch Judiciary & the Supreme Court of the Netherlands, Association of Dutch Architects, Amsterdam Fund for the Arts, VU University, Royal Tropical Institute, Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art. Publications include international design indexes.

Novak (Rene Tichelaar & Eva van der Schans)

Graphic designers, The Netherlands www.novakontwerp.nl Novak work as graphic designers, with a focus on printed matter. Subjects include the intangibility of information, and the tactility and imperfection of designed media. Commissioners include Nokia, Europan Nederland, Canadian Centre for Architecture, SUN Publishers, NAi Publishers, Otobong Nkanga, BIS Publishers.

Press release The Wallace Collection & Bonhams London, 19th March 2012

Conversation Piece Auction of unique Dutch contemporary ceramics based on Dutch old master paintings to benefit the Wallace Collection
Seven unique ceramic works by Dutch contemporary designers and artists, inspired by Dutch old master paintings in the Wallace Collection, are to be offered for sale in a silent auction on the occasion of the re-opening of the Dutch Galleries at the Wallace Collection in London.

The famous Dutch Galleries of the Wallace Collection will ofcially be reopened on Thursday, 19th April 2012, following a major refurbishment. To mark the occasion, the Wallace Collection has invited a group of Dutch contemporary designers and artists to create seven ceramic table centrepieces. The project is sponsored by Bonhams auctioneers. The resulting unique works of art, which were inspired by the Dutch old master paintings in the Wallace Collection, will be offered for sale in a silent auction to benet the museum. A sneak preview of the works of art will be held at Bonhams, 101 New Bond Street, London W1S 1SR, to coincide with the exhibitions of Bonhams forthcoming auctions of Contemporary and Urban art from Sunday, 25th March to Thursday, 29th March. For more information on how to bid visit our special web-page at www.bonhams.com/events or contact Amy Randall at the Wallace Collection, +44 (0)20 7563-9567, amy.randall@wallacecollection.org. Bids are invited from Sunday, 25th March 2012. The silent auction will conclude on Thursday, 19th April 2012, at the ofcial reopening of the Dutch Galleries at the Wallace Collection, Manchester Square, London W1U 3BN.

Clare OBrien, Director of Development and Marketing at the Wallace Collection, comments: We are thrilled that these original, inventive pieces have been made to help the work of the Wallace Collection. Nette Megens of Bonhams European Ceramics and Glass Department comments: Bonhams is delighted to sponsor this initiative in aid of the Wallace Collection. We hope that there will be a great deal of interest in these unique and inspired works. The project, which was initiated by Dutch designers Krijn Christiaansen and Cathelijne Montens, is titled Conversation Piece, after the painterly genre of informal group portraits of which the most famous example is Rembrandts Night Watch. The term later acquired an additional meaning, referring to elaborate table centrepiecesparticularly those made of ceramicsthat are designed to spark conversation among guests at a table. Starting with this double meaning, which unites Dutch old master paintings and ceramic design, the pair formed an informal group of designers and artists, each of whom was asked to create a large and unique ceramic table centrepiece inspired by a particular work or genre from the Dutch Galleries at the Wallace Collection. The projects participants are visual artists Marina De Caro (AR) and Goele Dewanckel (BE), and designers Joris Landman (NL) and Novak (NL). While used to working in a broad range of disciplines, including graphic design and sculpture, most of the artists were new to the medium of ceramics, and the results are beautiful, imaginative and original. For example, Cathelijne Montens began by looking at still-life paintings in the Wallace Collection that include dead animals. Working with a taxidermist, she used real animal bodies to cast beautiful stoneware moulds that result in textured objects of great tactile quality and character. Novak (Rene Tichelaar and Eva van der Schans) used their graphic design skills to translate pottery vessels depicted in 17th-century Dutch paintings to real works of art. They then combined these objects to form an entirely new composition, adding the illusion of light found in the paintings from which they are derived. The other artists in the project used similarly imaginative and varied processes to create their works of art. The ideas for these conversation pieces were developed and realised over a ve-week period at Sundaymorning@ekwc: a Dutch artist-in-residence centre at the forefront of international ceramic art and design. Ranti Tjan, Director of Sundaymorning@ekwc, comments: The artists and designers in this project combined inspired cultural heritage and inventive experiments to create a stimulating collection of ceramic one-offs. Cathelijne Montens, Dutch designer and project initiator, comments: It has been a wonderful opportunity for all of us to be able to realise this project, which aims to meaningfully connect the Wallace Collections classic Dutch old masters to contemporary art and design. Funds raised from the project will aid in two important publications: the rst volume of the Wallace Collections sculpture catalogue, and the Directors Choice book of highlights from the collection.

For more information on bidding on these pieces, or to enquire about tickets to the ofcial re-opening reception and dinner on Thursday, 19th April, please contact: Amy Randall, development & marketing assistant at the Wallace Collection +44 (0)20 7563-9567 / amy.randall@wallacecollection.org For large resolution images of the works offered in auction, or about Bonhams, please contact: Katherine Boyle, press ofcer at Bonhams +44 (0)20 7468-8363 / katherine.boyle@bonhams.com For more information on this project and the participants, please contact: Cathelijne Montens, designer and project initiator +31 (0)6 2897-6118 / mail@cathelijnemontens.com

Notes for editors

Designers/Artists
Marina De Caro Visual artist, Argentina, www.marina-decaro.blogspot.com Krijn Christiaansen & Cathelijne Montens Designers, The Netherlands, www.krijnchristiaansen.nl, www.cathelijnemontens.com Goele Dewanckel Visual artist, graphic designer & illustrator, Belgium Joris Landman Editorial & graphic designer, The Netherlands, www.jorislandman.com Novak (Rene Tichelaar & Eva van der Schans) Graphic designers, The Netherlands, www.novakontwerp.nl

The Wallace Collection

The Wallace Collection is a national museum which displays the wonderful works of art collected in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries by the rst four Marquesses of Hertford and Sir Richard Wallace, the son of the fourth Marquess. It was bequeathed to the British nation by Sir Richard's widow, Lady Wallace, in 1897. It is probably best known for its paintings by artists such as Titian, Rembrandt, Hals (The Laughing Cavalier) and Velzquez and for its superb collections of eighteenth-century French paintings, porcelain, furniture and gold boxes. Displayed at Hertford House, the main London townhouse of its former owners, the Wallace Collection presents its outstanding collections in a sumptuous but approachable manner, which is an essential part of its charm. www.wallacecollection.org

Bonhams
Bonhams, founded in 1793, is one of the world's largest auctioneers of ne art and antiques. The present company was formed by the merger in November 2001 of Bonhams & Brooks and Phillips Son & Neale. In August 2002, the company acquired Butterelds, the principal rm of auctioneers on the West Coast of America. Today, Bonhams offers more sales than any of its rivals, through two major salerooms in London: New Bond Street and Knightsbridge; and a further three in the UK regions and Scotland. Sales are also held in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Carmel, New York and Connecticut in the USA; and Germany, France, Monaco, Hong Kong and Australia. Bonhams has a worldwide network of ofces and regional representatives in 25 countries offering sales advice and valuation services in 60 specialist areas. For a full listing of upcoming sales, plus details of Bonhams specialist departments visit Bonhams website. www.bonhams.com

Sundaymorning@ekwc
Sundaymorning@ekwc is an international workplace in Den Bosch, The Netherlands, where artists, designers and architects are invited to explore the technical and artistic possibilities of ceramics. The organisation operates as an artist-in-residence centre and as a centre of excellence, and is widely renowned for its technical facilities and expertise. It aims to further and promote the development of contemporary ceramic art and design. Alumni include such names as Anish Kapoor, Tony Cragg, Antony Gormley, Alexander Brodsky, Hella Jongerius, Marcel Wanders and Studio Job. www.ekwc.nl

Photos of paintings: copyright the Wallace Collection; photos of Floating Vase and detail of The Virtuous Women: copyright Wim Voets, www.lookdeeper.eu.