The French designer Fabienne Jouvin (see image 9) graduated from the superior school of applied arts Duperré in 1985. Since then, she has travelled the world collecting designs for pieces sold and exhibited under her name internationally, with a studio based in Paris. On her website, she writes “From my travels - from Tokyo to The Habana, from the streets of Paris to the sea bed of The Maldives - I bring back sketchbooks, pads of notes, drawings and collages: hispanic or contempory architectures, faces reminding those of Piero Della Francesca, enigmatic objects non identified... These spontaneous sketchbooks give rise to unique pieces and editions painting, textile, porcelain, cloisonné...”. Her first exhibition was in 1989 and in 1996 she began an association with the firm ‘Asiatides’ allowing her to create pieces made in China and Thailand and utilising their designs and techniques.

This pair of flasks, possibly intended as tea caddies, are typical of her ability to give a ‘twist’ to the pieces from which she draws her inspiration. The shape is Chinese from the seventeenth century (see image 10), while the iron red colour is found on Chinese pieces two hundred or more years later. Combining this with a white ‘crackle glaze’, also well known from Chinese ceramics, was Jouvin’s own idea completing the mix of ancient and modern. Marked as from the Asiatides range with the stylised ‘A’, pieces like these are no longer available currently implying that they were probably made early on in her association with the firm and now have a uniqueness of their own.