Secessionist Petrol Blue Vase with Gilded Handles

• Imperial Amphora - Imperial Amphora was a brand of ceramics that was produced by the Amphora Pottery Company, which was a Czechoslovakian company that was active in the early 20th century. The Amphora Pottery Company was founded in the town of Turn-Teplitz (now called Teplice), which was a centre of the Czechoslovakian ceramics industry at the time. Imperial Amphora ceramics were known for their high quality and attention to detail, and were highly prized by collectors. The company produced a wide range of ceramic products, including vases, figurines, and decorative objects. Many of the company's products were made in the Art Nouveau style, which was popular in the early 20th century, and were decorated with intricate, stylized designs. The Amphora Pottery Company was nationalized by the Czech government in the 1940s and was eventually absorbed into a larger state-owned ceramics company.
• Sgraffito - In ceramics, sgraffito is a scratched or incised decoration through the slip, applied to the body of the object before glazing, to reveal the colour of the body underneath.
• Manner of .... / Style of ..... - A cataloguing term where the item, in the opinion of the cataloguer is a work in the style of the artist, craftsman or designer, possibly of a later period.
• Gilding - Gilding is a method of ornamentation whereby a thin sheet of gold metal is applied to items made of wood, leather, ceramics, glass and silver for decorative purposes.
  
  For furniture including mirrors, the sheet of gold is usually applied over a coating of gesso. Gesso is a mixture of plaster of Paris and gypsum mixed with water and then applied to the carved wooden frames of mirrors and picture frames as a base for applying the gold leaf. After numerous coats of gesso have been applied, allowed to dry and then sanded a coat of "bole", a usually red coloured mixture of clay and glue is brushed on and allowed to dry, after which the gold leaf is applied. Over time parts of the gilding will rub off so the base colour can be seen. In water gilding, this was generally a blue colour, while in oil gilding, the under layer was often yellow. In Victorian times, gilders frequently used red as a pigment beneath the gold leaf.
  
  Metal was often gilded by a process known as fire gilding. Gold mixed with mercury was applied and heated, causing the mercury to evaporate, the long-term effect of which was to kill or disable the craftsman or woman from mercury poisoning. The pursuit of beauty has claimed many victims, not the least of which were the artists who made those pieces so highly sought after today.

This item has been included into following indexes:

• Amphora porcelain (Europe) - vases, ewers and urns 131