This stunning lamp base is a converted Art Nouveau Weller Sicard vase. It is a prime example of Sicard's trademark metallic lustre glaze.

One of the pioneers of Ohio art pottery was Samuel Augustus Weller, who created the seventy-year enterprise of Weller Pottery. He started his own business in 1872 in Fultonham, Ohio making utilitarian ware such as stoneware jars and clay flowerpots. But in 1882 Weller moved his small company to Zanesville, Ohio, and by 1888, he had employed 68 potters to make art pottery at what historians call “the first edition” of the Putnam factory. As the factory grew in size and employees (175 active potters by 1894), Samuel Weller joined forces with other artisans such as William A. Long, Jaques Sicard, and Frederick Hurten Rhead.

In the early 1900s Weller Pottery glaze line and pattern development was led by international artists. Frenchman Jaques Sicard and his assistant Henri Gellie worked in secret for two years to perfect the metallic lustre glazed Sicard line. Sicard’s stay at Weller was short as he left for France in 1907, but Weller kept a large stock of this valuable Sicard line long after.