Axel Salto (1889-1961)
Bowl, n.d. 
Stoneware, Royal Copenhagen Porcelain Manufactory

For Axel Salto, nature was an inexhaustible source of inspiration, and the fascination with its forms and patterns followed him throughout his life. He also turned to nature for subjects and structures that could be transposed to his stoneware work, such as leaves, grains, chestnut shells, eucalyptus fruits and acorn cups.¹ However, Salto never sought to copy or imitate nature directly, striving instead to create forms that he felt expressed something about the inner life and spirit of nature.

This bowl is decorated with branches done in relief and glazed with a Sung glaze. It was made at Royal Copenhagen Porcelain Manufactory, but the shape was presumably devised at Carl Halier’s workshop back in 1929–1930. This is in no way unprecedented as many of the things Salto put into production at Royal Copenhagen Porcelain Manufactory in the years 1933 to 1961 were originally created during his time with Halier.

With its organic branch motif, the bowl has a certain kinship with MK 59, although there are also major differences between the two in terms of body and glaze. Both works have their roots in Salto’s ‘fluted style’, which he first began developing in the early 1920s. Back then, Salto worked with soft porcelain at Bing & Grøndahl, where he conducted close studies of how fluted patterns affected the movement of the glaze during firing. He continued to develop the style concurrently with the ‘budding style’ from which the ‘sprouting style’ later emerged.