Cordelia Plimpton was one of a group of Cincinnati women who, in the 1870s and 1880s, helped to found the art pottery movement in America. Her vase was obviously inspired by Hispano-Moresque examples such as one found at the Palace of the Alhambra in Granada, Spain. “Alhambra” vases, with typically flat, winglike handles, were extremely popular at the end of the nineteenth century and were often copied by European potters as well as Americans.
Plimpton’s vase, designed by her architect son Lucien, appears to be unique because of its inlaid clay decoration. Using clay in shades of brown and yellow from Ohio and black clay from Indiana, Plimpton inlaid decorations in imitation of Arab script, as well as a Cairo street scene on one side of the vase and a camel rider on the other. The date 1881 is inlaid at the base of one of the winged handles. Considered sensational in its time, Plimpton’s “Alhambra” Vase was exhibited in the Cincinnati Room of the Woman’s Building at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition.
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