Lidded vase with Medusa decoration and snake handles 1886 - 1896

Here is the audio guide script about the artwork you provided: This lidded vase with Medusa decoration and snake handles was made by Minton. The eye is immediately drawn to its cobalt blue ground, offset by elaborate gilding. A closer inspection reveals a captivating interplay between form and allegory. The vase's structure, with its round body and pedestal base, provides a canvas for classical motifs. Medusa’s serene face contrasts with the writhing snakes that form the handles and lid ornament, embodying a tension between beauty and horror. This echoes the broader structuralist theme of binary oppositions, where meaning is derived from contrasting elements. The precise painting of Medusa and floral detailing is very decorative. Such details destabilize fixed meanings, inviting a semiotic reading. The snake, a signifier of both danger and transformation, creates a dialogue between surface aesthetics and deeper cultural narratives. The vase, therefore, functions beyond mere decoration. Its elegant form and symbolic ornamentation engage with enduring philosophical questions of beauty, power, and the human condition.