Crustacean ginger pot
1999
- Medium
- stoneware
- Measurements
- (a-b) 43.3 × 24.7 × 20.0 cm
- Inscription
- (a) incised in base c.: JaneT / 99
- Accession Number
- 2005.3.a-b
- Department
- Contemporary Design and Architecture
- Credit Line
- National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Kenneth Hood Bequest Fund, 2005
© Courtesy Janet Beckhouse Estate
This digital record has been made available on NGV Collection Online through the generous support of The Vizard Foundation - Gallery location
- Not on display
- About this work
-
This Chinese-inspired lidded vase is barely discernable beneath an encrusted surface of barnacles, shells and coral. Much of Janet Beckhouse’s work is inspired by the sixteenth-century wares of Bernard Palissy which are based on forms from the natural world. The relationship between man-made objects and the relentless force of nature is a recurring theme in Beckhouse’s oeuvre. Next to the nineteenth-century Worcester vase it makes an intriguing dialogue, both vases celebrating nature; the Worcester vase literally displaying it on a pedestal (of nature’s own making), and Beckhouse’s illustrating the futility of any thought that man might conquer nature.
