Vase - With Achilles and Thetis

The short, conically rising foot, decorated with relief, gilt flower and leaf motifs, supports a widening, cylindrical body. The neck is laced at two places, ending in a cup-shaped to of a splaying rim the side is equipped with a stirrup handle. One side of the body is decorated with a leaved bough a line of stylized, gilt leaves, painted in high, red enamel. The male figure dressed in antique clothes (Achilleus) is enclosed by a female figure (Thetis), also in antique clothing, emerging from water. In the background, there is the rising sun or a rainbow (?). The other side is divided into four fields by two crossed lines, decorated with rabbits, a boar, and a lion among relief circles and irregular polygons and, in an arched frame, a fantasy bird (perhaps a griffin). The neck is lined with a stylized wave motif, zigzag lines and spots. There are indented, stylized, leaved foliage running along the top of the foot. An analogous piece by Emile Gallé is published in Klesse 1982 No.91. According to this study, the decoration was modelled on a book illustration taken from Walter Crane's Szenen aus dem Trojanischen Krieg (Berlin, 1887).