Beate Andersen, sculptural stoneware vase, 1989

A sculptural stoneware vase by Beate Andersen, one of Denmark's leading ceramicists, signed and dated 1989 on the base. A tapering four-sided body rises from a black foot and opens into a flared square mouth. The outline is architectural; the surface softens it. The matt blue glaze softens to cream along both edges. Over it, fine black lines gather tightly at the waist and open out towards the rim and foot, pulling the form in and then releasing it. It is a small object with real tension in it. Andersen's work is held in the collection of Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam. This piece shows why: modest in scale, exact in every line. On a shelf or mantel, it becomes the point an arrangement turns on.