Rago Auctions

By the late 19th century, the Symbolist and Art Nouveau movements were sweeping across Europe and arrived at Zsolnay around the summer of 1897, when the great Hungarian painter József Rippl-Rónai returned to his homeland from Paris. Rippl-Rónai was active in the Parisian post-impressionist Nabis movement and the Symbolist movement, groups united by their view of color and form as subjective and not to be constricted by naturalism or realism. During his return to Hungary, he helped design a dining room in the Budapest palace of Count Tivdar Andrassy for which ceramics were commissioned from Zsolnay, where Rippl-Rónai stayed briefly to execute a few designs for plates. These events coincided with the company’s invention of their famous eosin glaze and the hiring of a group of well-trained artists and designers, including Sándor Apáti Abt, Lajos Mack, and others.

Abt studied sculpting at the Royal Hungarian School of Applied Arts in Budapest and apprenticed under Hungarian sculptor and artist Alajos Stróbl before finding employment as a designer at Zsolnay. He worked at Zsolnay from 1898 until 1908, designing a wide range of small sculptures, ornamental objects, and ceramic paintings, as well as serving as an instructor in the factory’s apprentice school. The present lot is one of his finest creations, depicting a dreamlike female visage flanked by the ends of a crescent moon. Luna’s somnolent appearance is enhanced by a lustrous, iridescent eosin glaze in shades of blue, pink, purple, and gray, her slightly upturned chin and closed eyes giving the impression of someone at rest, perhaps dreaming. Her importance within the pantheon of Zsolnay's output is confirmed by the presence of the artist’s name. Official factory policy discouraged the signing of individual pieces, but Abt, along with his coworker Mack, were so highly regarded within the company they were occasionally allowed to sign their designs.

Abt’s Luna is Zsolnay’s iteration of a popular theme explored by other contemporaries, such as Pierre-Adrien Dalpayrat, but executed in the company’s distinct, more painterly and colorful aesthetic. Zsolnay exhibited an example of Luna at the 1900 Paris Exposition and the 1902 International Exhibition in Turin alongside other exceptional forms that represented what is now known as the golden period of the company’s history (1897-1914). Fewer than ten examples of this form are known, making it an extremely rare and desirable piece of Zsolnay’s history.