Bowl

Adelaide Alsop Robineau was one of the most influential figures in ceramics just after the turn of the century. With her husband, Samuel, she published the influential journal, "Keramic Studio"; she participated in the innovative collabortive porcelain-making and educational enterprise at University City, Missouri; and she produced some of the most exquisite work in porcelain ever to be fashioned in this country. She was one of a group of pioneering women who tackled the difficult medium of porcelain. Robineau's works are characterized by jewel-like crystalline glazes and painstaking carved decoration. The eggshell-thin porcelains that she executed are among the most virtuostic of all her work. This coupe, in a shape inspired by Japanese porcelains, is one of only two surviving examples of Robineau eggshell porcelain. It represents the most difficult and time-consuming work ever undertaken by its creator. The designs, excised and incised on a body of paperlike thinness, reveal portions of almost transparent luminosity.

Credit: Purchase, Edward C. Moore Jr. Gift, 1926