Memory Vessel 39

The glass vase is a replica of a broken 19th-century Chinese porcelain vase. Bouke de Vries reassembles a broken ceramic vessel, creates its replica in glass and places the broken porcelain pieces inside the vase. The glass vessel is therefore a ghost of the original piece, containing its fragments, its memory.

Courtesy of the private collection of Laura and Cristian Meris

● Type: Vessel
● Dimensions: 48 H x 23 Ø cm
● Material: Porcelain, glass
● Date: 2016

While studying ceramics restoration, Bouke de Vries undertook an internship at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, where he restored a Roman glass cinerary urn. Years later, Bouke came up with the idea of making a glass cinerary urn for a broken vase. For his Memory Vessel series, Bouke finds great-quality ceramic vessels from the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, broken but complete, reconstructs their shape and makes an exact replica in blown glass. The broken ceramic pieces are deconstructed again and placed inside the glass vessel. The glass piece acts as a ghost, a memory of the ceramic vase, as well as a receptacle for its “ashes”.

Porcelain VirtuosityExhibition