Art Pottery Bottle Vase with Cork Stopper — Oxblood Red & Green Reactive Drip Glaze

Start with the glaze, because that's what stops you. A deep, rich oxblood red wraps the body of this little bottle vase — wine, burgundy, the color you'd swirl in a glass and hold up to the window. Around the shoulder and upper neck, a cream-oatmeal glaze breaks against that red and runs, spilling down in vertical streaks of olive and chartreuse green. It's a reactive glaze, the kind that does its own thinking in the heat of the kiln, and the result is fluid and flame-like — color caught mid-pour, like wax sliding down the side of a candle. High-gloss throughout. The light loves it. The form is simple and right: a rounded onion-teardrop body, maybe 5 inches tall, drawing up to a short narrow neck. Above the glaze line the warm natural clay shows through, bisque-toned and honest, and the original cork seats cleanly into it. A bud vase, a bottle, a small bright thing for a windowsill — it doesn't need a job to earn its keep. It came out of the estate of a longtime collector who spent her career in the fine jewelry trade and brought that same trained, patient eye to the decorative pieces she gathered. She chose things because they were beautiful, and she had the eye to know the difference. This one she clearly chose for the glaze. Someone who knew quality when she saw it looked at this glaze and wanted it close. That's the best reason I can give you to want it too.

• Type: Art pottery bottle / bud vase
• Height: Approximately 5 inches
• Form: Rounded onion-teardrop body rising to a short narrow neck
• Glaze: Glossy reactive drip — oxblood/burgundy red body with cream-oatmeal pooling at the shoulder, breaking and running into olive and chartreuse green streaks
• Stopper: Original cork, seats well into the natural clay neck
• Provenance: From a Hobbsville, North Carolina estate — the collection of a longtime fine-jewelry professional with a trained eye for decorative objects
• Condition: Excellent overall. The glossy glaze surface is clean and pristine across the body, shoulder, and neck — no chips, cracks, hairlines, or glaze flaws. The original cork is present and seats well. The recessed unglazed clay base shows one small natural firing artifact — a tiny dimple in the dry footwell — which is a normal characteristic of how the piece was made, tucked on the underside and well away from any display surface. Not damage; just the kiln's signature.