Carole Moses Harman Furniture

Carole Moses Harman Hand-Painted Fish Dishes, Arctic Char & Ouananiche, Pair These two large circular earthenware dishes were painted in the same month of 1987 and are titled by the artist for two northern cold-water game fish. Each is wheel-thrown, with a broad sloping rim and a wide shallow well, and each carries its fish in profile across the full width of the well over a cream-white glaze, framed by two thin blue lines, one on the rim and one encircling the well. The Arctic char swims to the left with an olive-green back scattered with pale yellow spots, a pale green flank shading to a deep yellow belly, a flush of rose along the lower body and a yellow-orange tail dark at its base. The ouananiche, also swimming to the left, is the cooler of the two: an olive-green back over a silvery-white flank with faint cross-hatched scaling, pale yellow along the belly and lower jaw, a rose flush on the cheek, and round black and green spots crowding the head and gill cover and running back to the tail. On both, the fins are drawn as fans of fine rays and the small adipose fin of the salmonid is carefully given. The handling throughout is that of a natural-history painter rather than a decorator, with each fish placed on the white ground as a specimen would be placed on a page and the title written beneath it in the artist's own hand — in dark brown on the char, in blue on the ouananiche. For the fisherman in the family, and a natural pair: both dishes are dated June 1987, both are signed on the front and inscribed on the reverse in the same hand, and the two subjects belong together as northern cold-water game fish rather than as a general decorative pairing. Dimensions Diameter: 12 inches (30.5 cm) each Height: 1¼ inches (3.2 cm) each Marks Each signed on the front: CMHarman. Titled and dated on the front: "Artic Char 6/87" in dark brown script — the misspelling of Arctic is on the dish itself — and "Ouananiche 6/87" in blue script. Each inscribed on the reverse in brown script, read as "LM-N '87". A small circular paper label on the reverse of the Arctic char dish...