This baluster ewer is the second of a matching three-piece set alongside its companion vase and fellow ewer, all sharing the same polychrome cloisonné arabesque decoration worked across a gilt ground, the dense, repeating geometric pattern Islamic decorative art has relied on for centuries before European Orientalist fashion picked it up through the 1800's. Where the vase spreads the pattern across a fuller twin-handled body, this ewer's narrower baluster form gives the arabesque scrollwork a tighter, more vertical read, the same decorative language adapted to a different silhouette.
The piece carries the moulded WS&S mark shared across the set, along with its own impressed shape number, 6443. Made in Bohemia and dated to the 1890's, it reflects the same period of wide-ranging borrowed international styles, Islamic, Japanese, Mannerist, that Bohemian potteries like Wilhelm Schiller & Sohn worked through during this stretch of the century, sometimes within a single factory's output across just a few years.
Condition notes
Good antique condition. Some wear to cloisonné and markings on base; chips to rim.
