Porcelain Effie Hegermann Lindencrone

Vase with lid, height 52 cm, Effie Hegermann Lindenkrone, Bing & Grøndahl, 1916, from the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago. — Vase with lid, height 52 cm, Effie Hegermann Lindencrone, Bing & Grøndahl, 1916, from the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Effie Hegermann Lindencrone (1860–1945) is considered one of the most talented and successful porcelain artists of the early twentieth century in Denmark, creating the best examples of porcelain in the Art Nouveau style, or skonvirke, as the Danish form of Art Nouveau is now called. Her work can be found in many museum collections.

Vase with nasturtium leaf decoration, height 23 cm, Effie Hegermann Lindenkrone, Bing & Grøndahl, 1900, from the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Vase with maple seed decoration, height 11.5 cm, Effie Hegermann Lindenkrone, Bing & Grøndahl, 1900, from the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Effie was born in Hillerød to Colonel Diederik William Hegermann-Lindenkrone and Amalia Wilhelmina Sehested. At the age of twenty, Effie entered the School of Women’s Drawing (Tegneskolen for Kvinder) in Copenhagen, where she studied for five years. There she met Fanny Gard (1855-1928), a young teacher from the school’s first class, who became Effie’s lifelong companion.

The Danish ceramics factory Bing & Grøndahl, founded in 1853 by Frederik Wilhelm Grøndahl and Harald Bing, was a very successful and well-known brand of decorative porcelain at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. All her life, Effie worked at the Bing & Grøndahl factory, creating Art Nouveau ceramics with natural motifs: flowers, plants, seaweed, birds, shells, fish. Her best works are made of porcelain modeled in relief, sometimes with incised details and underglaze decoration, the expressiveness of which is enhanced by the play of light on the reliefs.

Vase with decoration of magnolia flowers, Effie Hegermann Lindenkrone, Bing & Grøndahl, 1917, from the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Morning Glory Vase, Effie Hegermann Lindenkrone and Fanny Gard, Bing & Grøndahl, 1905.

Effie Hegermann-Lindenkrone’s works with plant motifs were created exclusively as unique pieces from a detailed sketch. Sometimes her vases with incised details, the design of which was more about artistic intent than utilitarian purpose, and in which it was no longer possible to hold water, became rather sculpture. Effie’s work was included in Bing & Grøndahl exhibitions over the years in Berlin (1910–1911) and New York (1927). For the 1925 World’s Fair in Paris, she created a collection of freely modeled porcelain sculptures that attracted widespread attention and were purchased by several museums.

Heron Vase with carved fern motif, Effie Hegermann Lindenkrone, Bing & Grøndahl, 1896.

In the period between the two world wars, Effie worked with craquelure glazes, which were fashionable at that time, but remained faithful to her favorite natural motifs.