Urn

Artist William Morris (American, born 1957)

Date2000

Dimensions8 × 8 × 8 in. (20.3 × 20.3 × 20.3 cm)

MediumGlass; blown, applied, acid-etched, and engraved

ClassificationGlass

Credit LineGift of Georgia E. Welles

Object number

2016.204A-B

Not on View

DescriptionThe glass vessel is blown of translucent dark red glass appearing black, encased in opaque terracotta-colored glass. Bulbous form with a short rim that is out-splayed, then cracked off, with an applied dark red lip wrap. Three pairs of clawshaped short handles of the same color as the lip wrap curve downwards from the edge to the side of the narrow neck. The vessel wall bulges and then curves in to a rounded bottom. A type of scavo technique, creating a reaction of salts and mineral oxides scattered over the surface during the last phase of work, gives the vessel a rough, mat finish and an appearance of weathered age. The surface of the body is acid-etched and then engraved in subsequent registers beginning with a thin black line beneath the handles, a reserved band of red bars leaning left on the black ground resembles a stylized rope is followed beneath by a large frieze of a group of deer confronting a large wild cat, and two bands of opaque red undulating zigzags reserved on a black ground below. Irregular engraved lines are scattered all over the surface, emulating fissures and cracks. The rounded bottom of the vessel is supported by a ring of blackened sisal rope through which runs a thin red thread.

Published ReferencesYood, James, Myth, Object and the Animal, William Morris Glass Installations, Morris Studio, WA; Norfolk, VA, Chrysler Museum of Art; Billings, MT, Yellowstone Art Museum; Fort Wayne, IN, Fort Wayne Museum of Art, 1999.

Gangelhoff, Bonnie, “A Coastal Collection,” Southwest Art Magazine, May 2000, pp. 96-99, 152-153.

Comparative ReferencesSee also James Yood and Tina Oldknow, William Morris, Animal/Artifact, New York, London and Paris, Abbeville Press Publishers, 2000.