Model voor een zilveren vaas van Begeer 1917 - 1918

Carel Begeer made this model for a silver vase, its height around 25cm, and diameter 20cm, with a focus on form and texture over color. The piece is very tactile. You can imagine the artist's hands at work, coaxing the material into shape, leaving these little bumps and ridges. The surface isn't smooth, it's got this rough, almost geological quality, like a dried-up riverbed. It’s all about process, about how the thing came to be. Look closely at the base: the way the material clumps and gathers feels like an echo of the vase itself, a kind of material poetry. It's almost as if the vase grew organically, pushing up from its base like a strange, stony flower. I’m reminded of Medardo Rosso, who worked a lot with wax to create a similar sense of transience and ephemerality. But where Rosso's work often feels melancholic, this has a certain earthy optimism, like the promise of something beautiful emerging from the rough stuff of life.