Mithé Espelt (1923 - 2020) Ceramic Mirror 1963

Mithé ESPELT (1923-2020) Wall mirror in turquoise blue enamelled ceramic richly enhanced with gold cracked oven finish. Model created in 1963 and listed on page 26 of the artist's catalog raisonné "Le Luxe Discret du Quotidien" written by Antoine Candau at Editons Odyssée 2020. Refined antique decor in a pyramidal shape animated by two birds in relief. inscribed around a round mirror with a radiating pattern depicting a free-form sun. Very good original condition with its original green felt on the back. Dimensions: 36.5 cm high X 23 cm wide. Originally from the Montpellier region, Mithé Espelt (1923-2020) was born in 1923 in Lunel. She grew up in an atmosphere of artistic effervescence, surrounded by Frédéric Mistral, Edmond Baissat and the decorator Jean Hugo, an important figure in local artistic and intellectual life. In Lunel, he immersed the young Mithé in the society (Cocteau, Bérard, Picasso etc.) of his neighbour, Jean Hugo, and in that of the many writers and artists he frequented. After studying at the School of Fine Arts, she followed the teaching of Émilie Décanis developing her mastery of the arts of fire to be part of the first class of the experimental school of ceramics in Fontcarrade, an innovative project intended to train best French ceramists of his generation. She began her career in Paris by creating ceramic buttons for haute couture houses, then worked for Line Vautrin and will always keep the nostalgia of the dazzled memory of this collaboration with the great artist before returning to the South. She was then 23 years old and set up a ceramics workshop in which she declined pottery in tune with the times, developed her first jewelry collections and made the very first small mirrors. In 1947, she set up an extravagant carousel in which a myriad of small mirrors and secret boxes filled with jewels twirl under a shower of pure gold flakes. Objects that question desire and seduction, envy and gluttony, reality and illusion, while delivering to us, amid the song of birds and flowers, a message of optimism and love. Emilie Decanis, who had spotted her talent in Fontcarrade, saw in her one of the young hopefuls of the ceramic scene and included her in numerous exhibitions, in France and abroad. Success is there: Mithé finds himself in charge of the jewelry collections of Maison Souleiado and makes special orders for clients such as Louise de Vilmorin or Poupette Vachon, Brigitte Bardot's stylist in Saint-Tropez. Throughout a long career studded with the gold of success and extraordinary encounters, the explorer of the reflections and traps of seduction has created an inimitable style, that of a free and avant-garde work made of grace and lightness. And the breathtaking set of jewels, small mirrors and secret boxes that have made it famous never ceases to surprise and delight enthusiasts around the world. Mithé Espelt disappeared in one of those wonderful smiles that illuminated our years of complicity in September 2020, when the monograph "Mithé Espelt, the discreet luxury of everyday life" was published.