■ "BUTTERFLY" CERAMIC PLATTER, by Birger Kaipiainen for the Arabia Art Department, Finland, 1982, from the edition of three hundred, numbered 132/300, the oval form decorated with stylised flowers and butterflies worked in iridescent polychrome glaze against a mottled brown ground, the surface further enriched with small ceramic beads applied by hand to the decorative passages - the jewelled sculptural treatment for which Kaipiainen had become known in his late Arabia work.
Very good condition consistent with age and edition production, with no chips, cracks or restoration to the body or to the applied beads. Length 41.5 cm (16 ⅜ inches); width 36 cm (14 ⅛ inches).
The reverse signed by the artist, numbered 132/300, and bearing the Arabia Art Department backstamp dated 1982.
Birger Kaipiainen (Pori, 1915 - Helsinki, 1988) was among the most singular ceramicists of the Scandinavian postwar period and a long-tenured member of the Arabia Art Department alongside Rut Bryk and Kaj Franck. He was awarded the Grand Prix at the Milan Triennale XII in 1960, and his decorative vocabulary - drawn from Byzantine mosaic, medieval manuscript illumination and a personal reading of ornament as a structural rather than applied element - set him apart from the restraint characteristic of his Arabia contemporaries. Works by the artist are held in the permanent collections of the Design Museum, Helsinki, and the Nationalmuseum, Stockholm.
See also:
□ Item #00013. Birger Kaipiainen Flower Plate.