Vase - the brushmark “Leah” on the underside of the vase

The body of the cylindrical vase lightly tapers inwards towards the top where there is a marked indentation, before the form broadens out into a rim. The pale beige vase has a finely grained structure that contrasts with stylized hanging and standing floral motifs, in a deeply saturated black, that are painted alternately around the corpus of the vase.

The vase was manufactured in the ceramics manufacturer Lapid Pottery Works in Israel. The art director was Elisabeth Cohen-Silberschmidt, a German immigrant. In 1952 Dr. Bertha Rosenthal set up a department for hand-painted household ceramics in the Lapid factory in Tel Aviv-Jaffa. The objects manufactured at Lapid were hand-painted, mostly by women, as piecework. In order to demonstrate how much money was due, each completed item was signed on the base by the worker. In this case, the vase is marked “Leah.”