Vintage & Design Medina Floréz

 Old Danish Pottery - Vintage as a Sustainable Product

Bringing it from the past to a sustainable present. This trend of sustainability in the current market is what indicates that a product is magnificent and meets the three requirements (Q.S.P) in my opinion important: Quality, sustainability, and price. The Q stands for quality and compiles the history of the object. It has to do with several things including the artist who made it, the materials that were used, the uniqueness of the object, and the time it was manufactured. The S refers to it being a sustainable product. This means the manufacturing process did not affect the environment negatively (the product was already done). Finally, P refers to the good price. It can be found at a reasonable price (you can get it at a flea market, thrift store, marketplace, or at an auction). Therefore, vintage is sustainable and friendly to the environment and as a business, it should grow by a fairly large percentage in the 21st century. That is why I plan to get very good objects that have those requirements (Q.S.P.).

Vintage objects that come from the past, as a result of a social movement, are very interesting to me. In this case, Danish potters were part of that social movement. Danish ceramics made by artists who lived more than a century ago represent a group of artists who were innovators. Some of them belonged to the Art Nouveau movement, Art and Crafts, and later to the Art Deco, with Bauhaus influence, which resulted in functional and simple creations. These are artistic trends, according to the time in which they made their creations. All these movements saw their light from the end of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century. They represented and were the result of the social changes that occurred all that time. On one the first hand, it was the phenomenon of late industrialization in Denmark in the late nineteenth century. On the other hand, they reflected the mixed feelings left and generated in European and Danish society by the two world wars. All the above set a trend and a way of thinking and feeling for an entire era of artists.

In short, Denmark benefitted from all the changes in its society during that period. The result is an explosion of beauty, quality, and, above all, simplicity in all forms of art, thus earning them a position as they are highly recognized not only in Europe but throughout the world. Here I am going to mention a few.

Michael Andersen & Son started their ceramic factory in 1890 in Bornholm, the small Danish island in the Baltic Sea. As a factory characteristic, Michael Andersen & Son used the mass of clay with contrasting colors in his objects. The main potters and artists in the factory were Michael Andersen himself and of course his sons, especially Daniel Andersen (1885-1959), who was the most creative of his sons. He experimented and played with colors in the same object. For example, he made vases with enamels in new colors. In this way, we can say that these contrasts of shapes, colors, glaze materials, and clay resulted in very interesting ceramics. The special hallmark of the factory was the three fish. My beautiful vase with an art nouveau style of the signature of Michael Andersen & Son is about 20 cm high and 11 cm in diameter here you can see it. 

Next, we have Svend Aagen Jensen (SJ). This ceramist worked for the Søholm Factory (1835-1996) in Rønne in Denmark. He used the sgraffito technique that consists of making cuts or slits with a metal object on a piece of ceramic. He was also an expert in glazed ceramics. Here, I also leave you this beautiful vase from my collection, made approximately in the 1960s by Svend Aage Jensen from the Manilla collection No 3306, with a diameter of 85/37 and 120 mm. 

The two vases are precious and are beautiful details that decorate any part of my living room. So now vintage, without being an artistic movement, can be a sustainable social movement at the turn of the century that we want to have.

If anyone is interested in any object in my collection, you can contact me.