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Large terracotta vase with decorations of sailboats on the sea, signed and numbered under the base. Circa 1940.
In the shadow of the famous sculptor Maillol stands out the figure of the practitioner Jean Van Dongen. Born near Rotterdam on November 8, 1883, he arrived in Paris following his brother in 1904. Kees Van Dongen frequented the Bateau-Lavoir with Paul Gauguin, George Daniel de Monfreid and Maurice Denis among other artists. Jean then worked with the ceramist Paco Durio.
Jean Van Dongen was married on April 28, 1915 to Marie-Louise Esnault, a singer at the Montmartre cabaret “Au Lapin agile”. He met Aristide Maillol in 1922 and became her practitioner. He set up his workshop near that of Maillol at the bottom of the hamlet of Montval and settled with his family Place du Chenil. His collaboration with Maillol led him to bake his ceramics, to carve marble blocks, to make casts. Jean Van Dongen's work is particularly inspired by the animal kingdom. He exhibited an entire showcase at the Salon des indépendants of 1925 and then at the art gallery “La Crémaillère”. In 1929, he collaborated with Pablo Picasso on the realization of two vases.
The art critic Ernest Tisserand wrote of him in July 1929: “Because, sculptor or potter, Jean Van Dongen is above all a ceramist. He sculpts according to the fire. He turns his models according to who makes modern life. A born decorator, he wants his decor, discreet as it is, to burst clearly on the soft material of his land. And we put some fish dishes very high, some very quiet vases where a few metallic black fillets give a really exciting life to the beautiful material vitrified by the fire. Also its amazon is famous, its deer, its snakes, its turtle, its peacocks. But look for its pots and dishes, where the most deserving efforts, the most commendable successes are combined”.
Jean Van Dongen died in 1970 in Marly-le-Roi. His works are kept at the Royal museum Marly-le-Roi / Louveciennes, the national museum of ceramics in Sèvres, the Picasso Museum and in some private collections.
