Louis Léon Parvillée, Pair of Vases with Carps and Herons, circa 1870
Louis Parvillée was born in Paris in 1830. A multifaceted artist, he is both an advocate of polychromic archicture, researcher and historian of art. Louis Parvillée is best known for his architectural ceramic creations. He transfers his technical and aesthetic research from object to the building and from the building to the object by creating a permanent dialogue between architecture and decorative arts.
From the early 1870s onwards, Parvillée diversified his production and added decorative arts to his catalogue of production to which he applied the fruits of his research into architectural ceramics. In 1872 at the World’s Fair in London, the critic Victor de Luynes mentions the presence of furniture and decorative objects, new elements in the artist’s repertoire. Among these decorative objects is a pair of vases decorated with Japanese subjects representing birds, fish, flowers and foliage. Each piece is unique, Parvillée undertakes never to reproduce its design or decoration. He thus distinguishes himself from his colleagues who do not hesitate to produce in series. He collaborates with other manufacturers such as Champion, Lombard Fils, Gilardoni or Huart de Longwy.
The pair of vases decorated with carp presented by Galerie Vauclair is rare by its subject and the glazes that make up the dynamics of the work. Léon Parvillée’s fine know-how in the field of architectural ceramics is brought to its climax with this model mixing realism and technicality.