Designer:  Karl Drerup (1904 – 2000)

Item: Jester Dish

Manufactured by: Karl Drerup

Country of origin: United States

Year made: 1940s

Materials: Enamel on  copper

Dimensions: 1” x 5” x 5”

Condition: Excellent

Description: Here an excellent example of Drerup’s work with one of his well-known motifs of court jesters.  Signed with the cypher of his initials on the bottom, as shown.  Drerup is considered by scholars on enamel arts, as one of the leading and most influential enamel artists in the United States.

Born in Germany to an affluent Catholic family, Drerup studied painting in Berlin until 1930 when he moved to Florence, Italy, where he met his future wife.  They married in 1934 and moved to Spain. However, due to the rise in fascism and the Nazi movement, they left for the Canary Islands and then in 1937 moved to the United States, settling in Long Island where they remained until 1945.  They then moved to New Hampshire where he remained until his death.

Drerup’s works have been exhibited and collected by important American art museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Brooklyn Museum, and a related example is in the permanent collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. 

References: Jazzar, Bernard N. and Nelson, Harold B.; Painting with Fire: Masters of Enameling in American, 1930-1980; Long Beach Museum of Art (2006).