1950s GUNNAR NYLUND VASE MODEL ‘AXQ’ FOR RÖRSTRAND (27.5 cm)

A supremely elegant Scandinavian stoneware vase (model AXQ) by Danish-Finnish ceramic artist, designer, and sculptor Gunnar Nylund for RÖRSTRAND.  Nylund was one of the most renowned ceramicists of the last century and is best known for his work with the Swedish brand RÖRSTRAND, one of the oldest ceramics manufacturers in Europe.  The dark, slate-colored hare's-fur glaze is beautifully striated and very subtle.  Made in the 1950s, it is fully marked on the base. GUNNAR NYLUND was born in Paris in 1904 to a Danish artist mother and a Finnish-Swedish sculptor father, both of whom were art students there at the time.  In 1917, the family moved to Copenhagen, and later to Helsinki, where Nylund attended elementary school.  When the Finnish civil war broke out at the end of 1918, he and his mother moved to Denmark where he was enrolled in boarding school.  Following graduation in 1923, he returned to Helsinki to complete an architecture internship and study ceramics with his father, who en