Ceramic Covered Pot Signed by Paul Dordet (1896–1996), French Work, circa 1970

This ceramic covered pot, signed by the French ceramicist Paul Dordet (1896–1996), is a distinguished small-scale work by one of the most remarkable figures in twentieth-century French studio pottery. Dordet, born in the last years of the nineteenth century and living to the remarkable age of one hundred, worked throughout the major stylistic upheavals of the twentieth century, developing a personal ceramic vocabulary that drew on the long French tradition of studio ceramics while absorbing the lessons of successive modernist currents.

The covered pot — a form with deep roots in both Western and Eastern ceramic traditions — is one of the most demanding tests of a ceramicist's skill: the lid and body must be conceived and executed as an integrated whole, the proportions precisely balanced and the functional junction between cover and pot resolved with both precision and grace. Dordet's signed examples demonstrate all of these qualities, bearing the personal mark of an artist who worked in direct and intimate relationship with his material throughout a career of extraordinary length.

Signed works by studio ceramicists of Dordet's generation and reputation are collected as representative objects of French ceramic art at the height of its mid-century creative vitality. This covered pot, bearing the ceramicist's signature and carrying with it the authority of a long and distinguished career, is a refined and collectible piece of French decorative art.