Dancer Michael Powolny Wiener Keramik ca. 1907

With graceful poise, the dancer begins an elegant gliding step, her upper body arched fluidly backward. Her dark gown is richly and lavishly adorned with floral motifs, an expressive interplay of color, ornament, and movement. The finely modelled folds of the fabric, the intricately styled hair, and the detailed floral adornments lend the figure a vivid sense of plasticity, offering Michael Powolny ample opportunity to demonstrate his exceptional mastery of ceramic artistry.
This dancer figure stands as a quintessential example of Powolny’s unmistakably imaginative and decorative style. His dancer sculptures are among the iconic creations of the Wiener Werkstätte and have come to embody a joyfully staged sense of elegance and vitality, true to the spirit of the Secessionist movement, whose ideals Powolny translated into ceramic form with remarkable artistic clarity.