Batch 55 - Jean Cocteau (1889-1963) "Dawn". 1958.

Starting price : €2100

Jean COCTEAU (1889-1963)
«"Dawn". 1958.
White earthenware dish, blue slip, decorated with yellow, turquoise, white, light green, light blue and dark blue oxides in pencil, with bright yellow, blue and white enamels, depicting a face in profile.
Made by Atelier Madeline-Jolly.
Signed «Jean Cocteau» on the front. Numbered on the back «18/40». Marked on the back «Original edition by / Jean Cocteau / Atelier Madeline-Jolly».
Height: 4 cm. Diameter: 26 cm.
Limited edition of 40 copies.
Bibliography: A.Guédras, Jean Cocteau. Ceramics. Catalogue raisonné, Ed. Teillet-Dermit, Saint-Ouen, 1989, p. 133, n. 203.
An original certificate of authenticity from the Madeline-Jolly Workshop dated July 17, 1958 will be given to the buyer.
Story: Jean Cocteau, while collaborating with the potter Marie-Madeleine Jolly, asked her one day with his usual aplomb, "I would like a blue earthenware dish." Surprised, she replied that blue clay simply didn't exist; one works with white and pink clay, but certainly not blue. Cocteau, true to his boundless imagination, retorted, "Well then, figure out how to make the dish blue." Touched by the challenge and amused by the artist's poetic ambition, Madame Jolly decided to create the impossible. She covered the white clay with a blue slip, thus giving birth to the dish that Cocteau dreamed of seeing take shape. (Anecdote from the daughter)
2800/3000€