A superb vintage jewelry box by French ceramist Mithé Espelt (1923-2020). The ceramic lid is decorated with a blue and gold bird and the box is wooden. Espelt was born in the Camargue and worked with Line Vatrin's studio (famous for lead sunburst mirrors).
Text by Christine Lavenu (translated from French)
Mithé Espelt (1923-2020) -French ceramist from Lunel, near Montpellier.
Born in 1923, originally from Lunel from a family of winegrowers, Mithé Espelt will remain very attached to her Camargue region. Rocked in the artistic atmosphere of her grandfather, Edmond Baissat , friend among others of Frédéric Mistral and the painter and decorator Jean Hugo (great-grandson of Victor Hugo ), the young child learned drawing early. Aged only 16, she studied sculpture and drawing at the Beaux-Arts in Montpellier in 1939. There she meets the Sète resident Valentine Schlegel .
In 1943, she was selected to enter the School of Artistic Training in Fontcarrade , a center of excellence in the art of ceramics. She thus follows the teaching of Emilie Decanis . She retains her teacher's committed passion for traditional craftsmanship. Mithé Espelt began his career in Paris in Nathalie Pol 's ' Atelier Lydia Chartier', creating ceramic buttons for Haute-Couture and Line Vautrin houses, among others. Competent, she quickly manages the production of the workshop and masters the subtleties of the golden color.
However, being attached to her native region, at the end of 1946, barely 23 years old, she decided to return to Lunel and set up her ceramics workshop in an outbuilding of the Hôtel de Bernis inherited from her grandfather. Under the sun and nature of the Camargue, Mithé Espelt transforms the earth into gold. She meets and marries the lawyer Maurice Figère who decides to give up his profession to assist her in her work. This choice of an artist's life allows the couple to travel and discover other cultures which will be sources of inspiration for the new models of the workshop.
Distributed in the Souleiado boutiques, the ceramic creations have met with great success. These are feminine accessories: mirrors, jewelry boxes, necklaces, buttons or useful objects such as key rings or thermometers. These objects described as 'The discreet luxury of everyday life' by Antoine Candau reveal the joyful soul of the ceramist. With more than five hundred ceramic models, the work of Mithé Espelt resounds with a colorful poetry sparkling with joy. A flowery poetry sung by the birds! From blue to pastel pink, passing through greens, the artist's universe sometimes borrows from tropical gardens, sometimes higher still from the solar stars. mithe espelt mirror mithe espelt ceramist Mithé did not sign her works, she wanted them to remain accessible to all budgets. It is for this reason that his mirrors have long been wrongly attributed to François Lembo. However, their style is different. Drawing inspiration from Byzantine art, the Vallaurian artist used iridescent enamels in the shape of pearls simulating precious stones and signed his name on the reverse. As for Mithé, she covered the back of her pieces with felt, usually green.
Its refined mirrors reveal great technical mastery by playing on cracked gold and enamels sometimes encrusted with colored crystals. To obtain the color effects, up to nine operations and generally four firings are necessary. The artist practiced until 2000, then gave way to new fairy hands, those of his daughter Marion de Crécy, who in the workshop continues an artistic ceramic of great and beautiful quality.
