Martine Bedin / Jeannette Montgomery Barron - À petits pas

Martine Bedin designs vases. Jeannette Montgomery Barron is a still-life photographer. They met at Sèvres, in connection with the project presented in this "Cahier". In small steps (à petits pas) their discussions led to them working together, combining their artistic skills to produce this set of vases on which the flowers in the photographs are painted by hand.

“For a long time the theme of the vase has obsessed me (…). The vase is the precious casket for the agony of flowers. But could the fight become more equal?  Between the flower and the vase, which might break first?  Placing an image of a flower on the heart of the object immortalizes the memory of a dignity that has disappeared. The dignity of the object fulfils this mission” explains Martine Bedin. The image gives the vase its sense, its use, its primary function.

Martine Bedin has created six new soft-paste porcelain vases  (Bottle, Ivy, Poppies, Tulip, Wisteria and Vase&vase). All are based on one central matrix, “a kind of archetype of a vase”. For five of them, the matrix is topped with a collar reminding us in miniature of various emblematic Sèvres forms. The sixth vase is totally shaped by Martine Bedin. Each of the six vases receives a different decoration, an image painted on by hand, reproduced from the photos specially taken by Jeannette Montgomery Barron.

Jeannette Montgomery Barron spent some time in the heart of the workshops of Sèvres - Cité de la céramique, learning the various stages in the creation of vases. She has worked hard to ensure her photographic images illuminate the skills of the craftspeople of the Manufacture.