Concentration camp memoraryware

Introduction

Even though the mosaic art form is centuries old it had a revival of interest during the last decades of the 19th Century. Victorian ladies often practiced various handcrafts as part of their parlour pastimes such as beadwork, embroidery, scrapbooking etc. and shard art, a type of mosaic tile technique, also became popular on a domestic scale. Small fragments of broken ceramics and glass as well as other found objects such as jewellery, buttons, toy figures etc. were collected and used as mosaic materials. These pieces were stuck onto urn-shaped vessels or other suitable objects in various patterns with linseed putty thus creating new decorative objects such as vases, flower pots and tables. It was a laborious task but in the end
the overall effect was quite handsome in appearance. These decorative pieces were often called Victorian “putty pots”. The name is derived from the use of putty to affix the found fragments onto vessels and surfaces. This style of mosaic collage is also referred to as memoryware because it often contained fragments of personal objects with sentimental value or connections to everyday life. The contemporary term for this style of mosaic work is pique assiette or picassiette and is derived from the French expression meaning “scrounger” or “stealer from plates” which refers to the nickname given to Raymonde Isidore who covered his entire house and garden (La Maison Picassiette) with mosaic designs of broken glass and pottery from 1938 to 1964 in Chartres, France.

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