Vase (France), ca. 1900 (CH 18666929)

Working alone orx with a variety of collaborators, Dalpayrat produced a wide range of shapes and decorations, however the depiction of a partly devoured animal heart may be specifically unique to his oeuvre. As bizarre as it is, the subject would have been consistent with the contemporary interest in Symbolism and the occult. Dalpayrat's glazes were virtually endless variations on his 'Dalpayrat red,' at times streaked or speckled with blue or brown, at other times dripped over an ochre glaze. In some instances, Dalpayrat combined his stoneware clay with kaolin, the key ingredient in porcelain. Metal mounts appear on some of his vases and others have been converted to lamp bases. When his partnership with Voisin-Delacroix ended, Dalpayrat partnered with Adele Lesbros, who invested 26,000 Francs in the venture. One of their joint undertakings was a monumental mantelpiece, purchased by the state for the Musée du Luxembourg. For Dalpayrat, designing the mantelpiece was an opportunity to apply to architectural ceramics the techniques that had built his reputation. Most important among them was his facility with sumptuous flambé glazes, created by transmuting copper oxides at the atomic level through successive firings in oxygen-depleted and oxygen-rich kiln atmospheres. Unlike other master potters of his period, he built no school of followers. After his death in 1910, his sons carried on in his tradition but this too ceased with the death of Adolphe Dalpayrat in 1934.