Teardrop Bottle

Description

Gertrud and Otto Natzler’s artistic relationship was highly collaborative: Gertrud created the forms of their earthenware pieces, while Otto formulated and applied the dramatic glazes. The couple’s dignified Teardrop Bottle epitomizes the harmonious synthesis between form and glaze that the Natzlers so often achieved. The brown, smoky gray, and mottled yellow tigereye glaze fuses with the graceful form of the body, which Otto described as “ascend[ing] slowly upward with a slight curve, as if turning onto itself, only to change direction faintly just before ending.”

Provenance

The artists, Los Angeles, 1963 [incoming receipt, RX4355, June 18, 1963; copy in curatorial object file]; sold to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1963.

Teardrop Bottle

Gertrud Natzler

1963

Accession Number

19261

Medium

Earthenware and glaze

Dimensions

25.1 × 11.1 × 10.8 cm (9 7/8 × 4 3/8 × 4 1/4 in.)

Classification

bottle

Museum

The Art Institute of Chicago

Chicago, United States

Credit Line

Purchased with funds provided by Mrs. Francis Clow Thayer, Alschuler Philanthropic Fund, and Mary Louise Womer