an Art Nouveau porcelain dish, Rörstrand, ca 1900, with dedication to Ellen Key.
Macrocrystalline zinc glaze, shell-shaped with relief decoration of a draped nymph, impressed mark SP KK1 and personally dedicated in black ink TILL ELLEN KEY MED BEUNDRAN FRÅN ALF WALLANDER (To Ellen Key with admiration from Alf Wallander). Length 22.5 cm.
Ellen Key (1849‑1926), a gift from the artist.
The collection of Hans & Frank Schmidts.
Acquired at auction after the above by the present owner.
Bengt Nyström, "Rörstrand - Art Nouveau Porcelain from Sweden - The White Gold of the North (Jugendstil-Porzellan aus Schweden - Das weiße Gold des Nordens) - Collection Hans Schmidts", Arnoldsche 2011, the present dish illustrated p. 122, cat. no. 48.
The author, educator, women's rights ideologue, and visionary Ellen Key was a leading intellectual and a significant opinion maker both nationally and internationally around the turn of the 20th century, widely debated even to this day.
Influenced by the Arts and Crafts movement, Key embodied ideas about how the people should be educated in good taste and that beauty in the home was an important tool in the struggle for a better society. Her visions of the good home were expressed both through writings and through the construction of her private residence Strand by Lake Vättern.
Key's contributions to Swedish decorative arts were appreciated and acknowledged by the artists of her time, including Alf Wallander. The present plate is thus personally dedicated "Till Ellen Key med beundran från Alf Wallander" (To Ellen Key with admiration from Alf Wallander).