Art Deco French Sculpture of Two Fish in Craquelé Porcelain

Nice and pleasant porcelain sculpture representing two fishes swimming together; with the prolongation of the caudal fin of the fish in the foreground has been obtained a solid base that supports stably the whole sculpture; the design is essential with strong and marked lines, in the whole pleasantly elegant and proportioned; the sculpture was obtained using the ancient technique of "lost wax" which consists in creating a wax model and using it to make a clay mold, on which two holes are made, one at the top and the other at the bottom, the wax is poured out by heating it and at this point the molten metal or liquid porcelain is poured in its place, thus obtaining a model identical to the wax one (see example photo); the object has also been personalized by using on porcelain the old technique of "craquelé"; craquelure in painting is the dense network of cracks that forms on the surface of paintings, it is often used to determine the age of a painting and therefore discover possible fakes. The decoration industry, towards the end of the eighteenth century, when the tendency was to decorate with objects with a strong antique appeal, invented the aging technique of craquelure to propose it in the realization of the most varied objects and materials such as ceramics, porcelain and glass. The artifact was produced between 1930 and 1935 in France in a small workshop in the Marais area, one of the richest districts of Paris, where the workshops of artists and artisans were the soul of the district itself. Our fish tell us a little piece of history, they are highly decorative and can be placed with any type of furniture. Measures width cm.36, depth cm.14, height cm.38.