Bak met drie roofvogelkoppen op de rand c. 1904 - 1910

This bowl with three raptor heads was made by Amstelhoek in an unknown time. I love how the piece sits between function and form. The decoration doesn't so much conceal the object but amplifies its material presence, emphasizing its shape. It's like the artists were thinking out loud, each brushstroke a little 'yes, and...' to the one before. Looking at it, I think about how the sandy glaze has these tiny specks – they remind me of the way a painter like Guston would build up a surface, not to hide the making but to celebrate the materiality of the medium. And those little bird head handles – how great is that? Each decorative decision seems really deliberate, making something so lovely, so functional and so deeply strange. This piece reminds me of what Paul Klee said about taking a line for a walk. It is like they were letting their intuition guide the hand, trusting that the sum of those little moments would be something special. Art isn't about answers, it's about the questions we ask along the way.