10/2024: The Vase with a Sad Skier

Did you know that there is a surprisingly large amount of ceramics and porcelain in our museum's glass exhibition depository? And that some of the exhibits are truly bizarre? Case in point: this porcelain vase with the figure of a skier. We can't tell the age or the producer from the exhibit's collection card, but that doesn't mean the vase doesn't have a story. The method of acquisition is described as 'transferred from former museum shop, closed 1968'. And so an explanation is offered. The vase with the figure had simply been lying around in the old museum shop for so long that it became a collector's item.

The vase with the figure had simply been lying around in the old museum shop for so long that it became a collector's item. The skier is dressed in a white furry hooded jumpsuit and is looking very, very sad indeed. The idea of placing a few carnation flowers in a vase and placing the whole object on the kitchen table makes one wonder why the object has made it to the depository. In all the time the vase was for sale, there was no one original enough and with a refined sense of exaggeration to buy this vase as a gift for a beloved one.