Collection Wolfers & Petrucci: Hidden Treasures

Marcel Wolfers / Antoine de Vinck
Three lacquered bowls, 1966
Lacquer on bisque fired stoneware (?)
Dimensions: 3 × 10 cm; 3,5 × 9,7 cm; 4,4 × 11,4 cm
Signed: on the bottom in red lacquer with the artist’s monograms “MW” and “AV” and dated “1966”
Provenance:
Marcel Wolfers and Clairette Petrucci collection
The ceramicist Antoine de Vinck (1924–1997) and Marcel and Clairette Wolfers-
Petrucci were great friends. They all were very sensible to the eastern arts
and adored early Chinese pottery and Japanese Chawan bowls. The Wolfers-
Petrucci collection held several pieces by de Vinck. Marcel Wolfers was always
experimenting with different methods to apply lacquer to a large variety of
surfaces. After the second world war, it took him a while to reinstall his lacquer
workshop in Vieusart and to acquire good quality lacquer. Around 1960, he
restarted making lacquer objects. The three bowls, bisque fired by Antoine de
Vinck, were lacquered by Marcel Wolfers in 1966. Although they look rough, all
pieces are signed with the monograms of both potter and lacquerer, and are
therefore considered finished. It is possible that Marcel Wolfers strived to create
lacquered bowls which were made to look as old, vernacular bowls, to resemble
rural every day pottery in Asia.
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