1940s LAHOLM KERAMIK Vase - Hand Painted Flowers

In 1931 Olof Larsson was just 18 years old. His father had just passed away and Olof took over the ceramics company his father had been running in Laholm, Sweden. In 1946 the new factory, under construction for the past year, was completed and renamed "Laholm Keramik" The year before, a young designer from Stockholm named Jane Wåhlsted joined the firm. Before she left in 1950, she introduced a tin glaze, like that on faience and majolica; many of the pieces were decorated with painted flowers in light colors. In the 1950's and 1960's the company turned to geometric designs, many attributable to Danish designer Kirsten Sejer-Pedersen and signed "Sejer P."

This graceful urn-shaped vase is one of Jane Wåhlsted's designs. The terracotta clay is coated with a pure white tin glaze everywhere but on the foot ring. The high shouldered form with a short rolled neck and small mouth is both modern and classic. The tall sprays of flowers in yellow, pink and blue with lots of green foliage were beautifully hand painted, with a narrow band of green at the base. The bottom has two marks: the factory stamped circle with the words "LAHOLM MADE IN SWEDEN" and the hand written shape number 192 with Olof Larsson's cypher, a conjoined OL. (We've darkened the photo a bit so you can see the marks more clearly.) In the 1970's Olof turned the factory over to his daughter Christin Larsson and her husband Nils-Olof Nilsson; the factory closed in 2000. A number of their pieces are displayed in the Laholm Ceramic Museum.

The vase measures 11 inches tall, with a mouth 1 1/2 inches wide and a 3 inch diameter base. It's 5 inches across at the shoulder, weighs in at about 2 pounds and is in excellent condition, with minor crazing on the bottom only. It's a lovely piece of Swedish fajans (faience), charming in many different interiors.

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