Can Dead Animals Be Art?
It's 9 feet tall, covered in bats and spiders, and straight out of your nightmares
Vase, 1889, Jean-Désiré Ringel d'Illzach. Bronze and copper, 107 1/2 × 40 9/16 in. Getty Museum, 2010.2
Body Content
Have you seen the VASE of DEATH at the Getty Center?
Simply called “Vase,” this nearly 9-foot-tall bronze by Jean-Désiré Ringel d’Illzach weighs over 1000 pounds…and that’s not counting the handles.
Ringel used real dead animals and insects, like bats and spiders, to create molds. He used the molds to cast bronze versions that he attached to the vase. The vase also features life casts of plants, peacock feathers, lace, and ribbons.
In 1893, a French critic noted that “Monsieur Ringel understands his art in the manner of Edgar Allan Poe.” In other words…macabre and nightmarish.
Anthropometric Photograph of the Artist Ringel d'Illzach, 4 juin 1903, Alphonse Bertillon. Albumen paper glued to a cardboard sheet. Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Strasbourg
The artist struggled to find a buyer for the vase during his lifetime, despite it traveling to three World’s Fairs.
The closer you look, the stranger it gets. What does it all mean? Perhaps only the artist really knew.
