CARSTENS TÖNNIESHOF ‘BASALT’ FLOOR VASE 7581/40

Here is a rather rare CARSTENS TÖNNIESHOF floor-vase form in a very rare colorway of glossy red and orange on a dark, matte coffee-colored ground.  The 'Basalt' décor was designed in the very late 1960s or early '70s for CARSTENS' up-market Luxus range by art director Dieter Peter.  This bold combination of shape and decoration is extremely collectable.  The vase retains its original label. DIETER PETER designed for CARSTENS in the early 1970s.  He is responsible for several famous relief décors from CARSTENS' Luxus range—'Reptile' among them, as well as the designs popularly styled 'Moon Crater' and 'Beehive.'  Little else is known for certain about this acclaimed artist. CARSTENS TÖNNIESHOF was founded in 1946 by Ernst Carstens and his son Christian.  Their family had had a long prior history of manufacturing ceramics and porcelain in Germany, but all of its businesses had collapsed by the end of WWII.  Most of the CARSTENS factories wound up on East German soil when the country was