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Jazz (New Yorker) Punch Bowl
Viktor Schreckengost’s “Jazz” punch bowl was commissioned by Eleanor Roosevelt for use by Franklin Roosevelt, the former governor of New York, after he became president of the United States. It combines Cubist and Art Deco vocabularies to capture a night on the town in Prohibition-era (1920–1933) New York City. The syncopated rhythms of jazz are suggested by both the instruments and the overlapping compositional elements.The vivid blue ceramic glaze evokes both the blues, as a musical genre, and also George Gershwin’s famous “Rhapsody in Blue” (1924), one of the first jazz compositions to be considered a serious orchestral work by music critics. The bowl’s lotus blossom silhouette and Egyptian Blue glaze reveal the influence of the Egyptian Revival movement, which was revitalized with the “discovery” of the tomb of Tutankhamun in 1922.
- Designer
- Viktor Schreckengost
- Maker
- Cowan Pottery
- Title
- Jazz (New Yorker) Punch Bowl
- Date
- ca. 1931
- Object Type
- Food
- Medium
- Glazed stoneware
- Dimensions
- 9 x 16 1/2 x 16 1/2 in. (22.9 x 41.9 x 41.9 cm)
- Credit Line
- Museum purchase, American Art Trust Fund, Mildred L. Landstrom Bequest Fund, Rudolph L. and Lucille L. Guttman Trust Bequest Fund, Bernie Family Trust Bequest Fund, Tribute Funds in Honor of Diane B. Wilsey, Harry S. Parker III, George M. Bowles, William Stimson, and Rena Bransten, and American Decorative Arts Funds
- Accession Number
- 2007.1