Cachepot Gustav Gurschner ca. 1904

Gustav Gurschner is one of the most important sculptors of Viennese Jugendstil. He was a member of the artists’s association Vienna Secession and Hagenbund, contributing his distinctive designes to Austrian arts and crafts around 1900.
Compared to some of Gurschner’s other cachepots, this one impresses with its large size. Accordingly, the cauldron-shaped vessel is also referred to as a “palm pot” in a sales catalog of Kunsterzgiesserei Wien. On its upper part, we find three bands of medallions, lined up and decorated with a relief-like spiral pattern, or alternately left blank. Four fluted metal bands divide the wall vertically, concealing the soldered joints where the four identical cast parts of the large cachepot had been put together. The rim and the two handles also feature fluting.
This archaic-looking vessel was part of an exquisite, private Viennese Jugendstil-collection, and has also been shown at the Hagenbund exhibition at Halbturn Castle in 1983.