Russian Doll Cake Plate

Object NameVessel

Artist Katherine Gray (Canadian and American, b. 1965)

Made FromGlass

Date2000

Place MadeUnited States, WA, Seattle

TechniqueBlown, Cased, Applied, Tooled, Assembled

SizeOverall H: 61.3 cm, Diam (max): 34.2 cm

Accession Number2001.4.7

Curatorial Area(s)

Postwar and Contemporary

Exhibitions

The Italian Influence in Contemporary Glass

Not On View

Interpretive Notes

Web Text

Here, Gray takes a functional object, the cake plate, and makes it into an improbable table ware with no function at all except to evoke wonder and desire. The repeating domes heighten the childlike awe that the cake plate, as the special bearer of enshrined beautiful desserts, inspires.

Physical DescriptionTranslucent cream-colored and opaque black and colorless glass; blown, cased, applied, tooled. b, d, f: covers, colorless and opaque black glass; blown, tooled, applied, assembled. Sulphide consisting of three nesting covered tazzas one inside another. Stands, shallow cylindrical top with black rim atop hollow cylindrical stem flaring to circular foot with applied wavy black edge. a) taller with steeper sides with colorless merese between bowl and stem. c) mid size with black merese between bowl and stem. e) squat with black merese. b) tall dome shape with long spool shape finial stem topped by globular almost annular knob. d) shorter dome and spindle shape finial stem, same knob. f) hemispherical dome with squat spindle stem and same black knob.
Provenance

Source Elliott Brown Gallery - 2001-03-16